Opinion | Ellie Craig
Counting Sheepies
Company founder Alan Cooper discusses the importance of internal communications within a thriving business, and how Freestyle’s monthly award ceremony has evolved from a mandatory meeting to a much-loved perk.
We asked our latest work experience student, Ellie, to answer a few questions about her week as a Freestyler. Here's what she had to say:
Q: What brought you to Freestyle?
A: I knew about Freestyle as I live locally, and also went to secondary school with Georgia, who already works as a Digital Exec at Freestyle. I asked her a bit about the job and then spoke to Freestyle’s Co-founder, Alan, who kindly offered me some work experience at Freestyle - I was so excited!
I wanted to spend time at Freestyle, as I was eager to understand the many aspects that make up a digital agency. I had particular interest in digital marketing and front/back end development as it’s these areas that I’m looking to pursue a career in.
"I wanted to spend time at Freestyle, as I was eager to understand the many aspects that make up a digital agency."
Q: What are you studying?
A: I’m currently studying Digital Media at Leeds University. It’s a course that covers a mixture of graphic design, front and back end development, as well as media. I really enjoy it, so it was interesting to see how these areas translate into the workplace.
Q: What have you been up to during your time with us?
A: During my time at Freestyle, I was able to chat to everyone, and learn a bit about what they do and what their job entails. At the start of the week, I spoke to Georgia, Eleanor, G and Jake about site support, Freestyle’s social media and even did some competitor analysis for one of their clients!
Later in the week, I had some time with Chris to look at the back-end development of one of Freestyle’s client’s sites, linking up their live twitter feed to their website. I then looked at the front-end development with Perry. I’ve been able to broaden my knowledge on different areas and have been given some great tips from Perry about how to further my learning in coding.
Click here to learn about the Freestylers mentioned in this post!
"You can tell that everyone at The Barns really enjoys working for Freestyle, and knows how to work well as a collective."
Q: What has been your favourite part of your week at Freestyle?
A: I really enjoyed the atmosphere and the people here. It’s not like normal offices. You can tell that everyone at The Barns really enjoys working for Freestyle, and knows how to work well as a collective. I really enjoyed myself - The Freestylers themselves couldn’t have been nicer or more welcoming to me. I especially enjoyed the biscuits, doggos and the switch up of music was pretty good too!
The Freestylers themselves couldn’t have been nicer or more welcoming to me. I especially enjoyed the biscuits, doggos and the music was pretty good too!"
Q: What are your future aspirations?
I definitely know that I would love to work in the digital and creative world and being at Freestyle this week has really reaffirmed this for me.
Get a peek into Ellie's week here :
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