Chigwell Tours provided such an exciting work shadowing for us! We came to hear about this opportunity through our sixth form team, as tourism is a passion of ours. Throughout our two weeks, we have both learnt some new, valuable skills and developed on others.
During our first week some of the tasks which we took part in were updating the company database, organising the tour information, using Photoshop to promote the different tours that the company has to offer and general business admin to do with the company. We also had fun working together with another intern to complete our tasks efficiently which helped developed our team work skills. Another task of ours was to help plan a holiday for international students coming to visit London and Essex; we enjoyed this because it gave us a chance to be more independent and use our own initiative when carrying out the research. As we conducted the research, we used our mathematical skills to ensure the activities and accommodation stayed within the budget.
When it came to our second week, we had the amazing one off opportunity to be featured as guests on LoughtonYouthProject ‘LYP’ radio, which is a well known radio station in Loughton. We did an exciting interview with Nick Robinson and another work experience student, Holly; answering questions about ourselves and Chigwell tours. Beforehand, we were extremely nervous and did not know what to expect, but the welcoming environment and friendly radio host Nick helped ease our nerves and before we knew it we where sat having a conversation with them over the radio station as though we had done this a million times. This also encouraged us to develop our communication skills and become a lot more confident within ourselves. It was a very unique experience which we feel not many people would get the opportunity to do and we were very grateful for the chance to do it. In addition to this, we carried out further research and advertised more tours online for the remainder of the week.
Overall, work experience has been extremely useful in providing us with essential experience and knowledge which we will need once we go into the world of work after we finish higher education. We would definitely recommend this experience to others our age as we believe it gives you a good insight as to what working in an office is really like. Furthermore, it was a really enjoyable and exciting two weeks working for Salomé as well as helpful to us.
Symone and Eloise
