The first month of my internship was mainly inside due to no snow and warm temps so I worked at my computer sorting through photos and videos to prepare posts for Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. This was a big task because photos were everywhere and every photo needed to be exported into another software and then tagged afterwards for ease of search. Without tags, photos could be easily lost in our 10,000+ photo database. Andy hired Nathan Brown, a ConVal graduate, to be our Social Media and Snow Report Coordinator. Nathan has filmed me and taken photos of me in the past so to work side by side with him was extremely fun and useful. I learned tons about editing, photography, and organization from Nathan. Outside of my desk work, I inventoried the terrain park equipment so we would have an understanding of what features we have, their condition, and our plan for them on hill.
Once ski season began, the marketing team was running smoothly and we made sure that we were always on top of content and planning for ski area communications. Each day my role was to take, edit, and organize all terrain park and general ski area photography. Keeping the social media channels updated at a ski area is demanding. To stay relevant in the ski industry, multiple posts per day are required. In some instances we had to get creative for photography due to weather, mechanical, and other operational issues.
Andy, Nathan, and I planned the terrain park events for the season as well as a schedule for when posts should be made and guidelines for the sake of consistency. This routine followed through until the end of my internship.
Here are some facts about my internship.
- 1200+ photos taken
- 3 edited videos
- 19 total posts on Instagram
- All of the '16-'17 media transferred into Image Relay from Dropbox
- Planned and implemented terrain park event formats
- Inventoried terrain park equipment
- Managed photography/videography equipment
- Manicured terrain parks on slope
- Assisted with terrain park builds
- Helped execute terrain park events
- Managed a Crotched Mtn email account and schedule with marketing team
- Assisted with various tasks as needed across the ski area
What Andy taught me and what I learned from my internship.
- How to successfully use Dropbox, Image Relay, and Excel to stay organized
- How to positively and effectively market a ski area to customers
- The importance of sound marketing and branding practices for businesses
- How to build/maintain a safe terrain park
- Importance of being able to work with all company departments
- How to organize and plan seasonal events
I loved my internship because it showed me a lot of insight about the ski industry and I got to work in a position that I have never been in before. I would 100% recommend internships to younger students and more specifically Crotched Mountain as the internship site. Skiing has and always will be a passion of mine. Having the opportunity to work and learn at a ski area was a dream come true. In a normal classroom environment, you are working alongside 15+ students with only one teacher and potentially learning about something that doesn't interest you, but at an internship you are working one on one with your supervisor and learning about something you truly want to learn about. Going to work everyday never felt like a chore or even a job, it felt like I was doing something that I was passionate about and it was the perfect way to immerse myself into my interests.
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