It’s now been a year since I became a permanent employee of Prepress, after starting as an intern a few months before. It seems as good a time as any to reflect on what it was like to start as an intern and then to make that transition, and why I’ve stuck around.
When I first joined Prepress as an intern, there were two main concerns contributing to my new-job nerves. Firstly, knowing that Prepress worked with a lot of medical and scientific writing, I worried that my degree in English Literature might put me at a disadvantage. With the training and support I received, however, this was never a problem. Prepress has a truly cooperative spirit and the office contains a wealth of knowledge from different backgrounds. If I ever encounter something I’ve never seen before, I know I can turn to my colleagues or pop my head round my manager’s door for advice. During my internship, Prepress also paid for me to complete courses with Publishing Scotland, which provided an excellent overview of the principles of copy-editing and proofreading.
Having moved to Perth to take the internship, I was also nervous about starting in a new office in a strange city. Fortunately, everyone at Prepress has been welcoming and friendly from the start. Almost immediately I was invited along to socialise with my colleagues outside work. Since then we’ve organised a few pub quiz outings, and the Prepress Book Club has been revived and meets regularly. The fact that Prepress recruits two interns at a time was also a huge help in settling in – it makes the world of difference having somebody else starting from scratch alongside you.
Those first three months at Prepress flew by. I learnt a lot, not just about editing and the publication process, but also about organising my workload and working in a team. It felt like there was still so much more to learn, and so when I was offered an extension to the internship, and later a permanent role, I said yes.
The highest compliment I can give the Prepress internship is that, when it ended and I became a Project Editor, very little changed. Sometimes in internships and placements, the work can feel inessential or devised just to keep you busy. At Prepress I was given both the responsibility and the support to be a part of the team from the very start.
Now, a year later, I’m still here at Prepress. Day-to-day it doesn’t feel like much has changed, but when I take a step back I realise how much I’ve grown in confidence in the last 12 months. 2023 has brought some changes in clients and I’ll be moving on to new projects this year. I’m pleased to say that those new-job nerves are gone; I feel prepared and excited for the challenges ahead.