Dani Berch

My name is Dani Berch! I am currently a sophomore at Chapman University. I am studying towards a degree in Strategic and Corporate Communication, and I am also pursuing a Political Science minor. When I declared my major last year, I became extremely interested in the field of communication and I could not wait to start learning. That is why I reached out to CV Strategies, a strategic communication company, and became an intern last year. I have learned so much in my time working for this company and I am excited for what is to come!

As an intern I have learned to wear many hats and advance my knowledge in a multitude of areas. For example, last semester I helped design some social media posts as my first project. After this, I began to work with the web design team. While learning the ins and outs of the backend of a website, I was also the one finding new content to keep the website current. This project is where the CV Strategies team saw some of my strong-suits emerge. After the website project closed, I began a new task in media monitoring. In the website project it was clear that I had an eye for current events and their significance. This month my tasks in media monitoring have expanded to social media monitoring too! With many clients it is important to keep fresh content and manage interactions on a daily basis. This is now my main job for the company and I am always still available for any projects that the web or any other team has. All of these roles and responsibilities have taught me so much about the communication world and I continue to learn new things every day.

Some major takeaways that I have from these experiences throughout my time with CV Strategies include the importance of responsiveness and time-management. When working with a team of people to complete a project, being available, responsive and ready to learn new things is vital. I was able to constantly correspond about getting posts approved, setting up meetings to learn new things and touching base on how I can improve for the next task or project. I also learned how to manage multiple projects and tasks at once and how to prioritize them to best serve our clients and the rest of my team. All of this was essential to the success of each project I played a role in.

Dani sitting at her desk completing her work

One piece of advice that I would offer to a student studying or who is considering studying communication is that this is a diverse field! There are so many avenues that you can take and it is important to take time before graduation to explore this and to find what your strongest areas are. This will then be something that you can explore more in depth. Another area of diversity in the field is the people that you can work alongside. In my internship I have had interactions with experts in finance, web design, graphics, journalism, and more! This will allow you to have a wide variety of tools to be the best communicator and employee!