My Time Interning at SpacePortX by Lauren

My time at SpacePortX has definitely been beneficial and fun at the same time. Spending time with the residents of SpacePortX has given me an insight into the environments that people work in, how it’s not just sitting and working, how it isn’t just paperwork and meetings, but so much more. You become friends with everyone around you, chatting and talking to each other about subjects ranging from the work, to the telling of funny stories from your past! (Don't worry anyone in SpacePortX, I won't be sharing your secrets anytime soon!)

On my first day at SpacePortX, I was nervous because I had never worked in a professional environment, which made me feel as if I wouldn’t be able to fit in and work along with everyone else. How wrong I was to think that. They welcomed me with smiles and talks of nerf gun wars! Spend some time at SpacePortX as an intern and you could end up doing something as serious as updating events on the website, or setting up the event space for the evening to doing something as ridiculous as taking pictures of interns imitating emojis! You might even chat to fellow residents about your work and get feedback, or hear someone debating about what to have for lunch! The options are endless and the world of SpacePortX is really yours for the taking, you get as much as you put in.

I was also given the task of designing and decorating the blackboards in any way I wanted to make them look more exciting. Normally, whenever I’m designing something, it is based on a theme or a specification, but this time I had to use my own initiative to come up with ideas suitable for SpacePortX. After I finished I had filled the boards with colourful illustrations of Manchester, quotes and even a map of the Northern Quarter! I was really given the freedom to do what I wanted with the boards and truly make them my own, it was nice to be given the independence and responsibility of really owning something, an opportunity that's not often given to interns.

Of course I made a few mistakes on the map as I’m unfamiliar with the area, but that’s what’s great about SpacePortX, people took the time to look at and read the display - it was lovely. They praised my work and also spotted any mistakes (in a completely constructive way of course) so that I could correct them.

During my time here at SpacePortX, I was also given the job of thinking of new topics to write about in blogs. Whilst researching for the blogs, I read up on articles about the tech and business world and about the people who went from being dropouts at school to becoming successful entrepreneurs and inventors! Something that helped me to put things into perspective and helped me to think more about my potential career path after my A Levels.

From these blogposts and articles, I learnt that not everyone is lucky enough to have a straight and clear path for them to get what they want and that many people actually start off with something completely different before they find an inspiration for what they really want to do. After that they work towards that goal to achieve what they had wanted from the beginning, some great insights for someone like me who's figuring out what they want to do.