My life as an intern
–O’Femi Kolawole
By SOLA BALOGUN
Tuesday,
November 6, 2007
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O’Femi
Photo: Sun News Publishing |
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Having served as an intern at The Week magazine some six
years ago, O’ Femi Kolawole, an award winning journalist
recently published a book entitled Maximising Internship Potentials.
The book which promises to educate and guide employers of
labour on how to tap the skills and potentials of interns
also presents the author’s account of his fruitful sojourn
in journalism.
The book equally aims at inspiring prospective interns on
the need to maximise the vast opportunities which the industrial
training offers.
Speaking on what inspired him to write the book, Kolawole
recently disclosed that many interns, due to their wrong perception
of what industrial training is meant to achieve, do not exploit
its many opportunities, and at the end of the training, they
fail to learn or achieve anything significant.
According to him, writing the book, using his own experiences
as a two-time intern at OGBC 2 Abeokuta ( now Gateway Radio)
and The Week magazine in Lagos, spiced up with other relevant
information, is his own way of helping to correct this mindset.
And truly, as a ‘two-time intern’, Kolawole should
know better. A Programme Associate at JAAIDS Nigeria, Kolawole
flagged off his journalism career as an intern at The Week
in 2001, after studying Mass Communication at The Polytechnic
Ibadan. Before then, he had undergone internship at the Ogun
State Broadcasting Corporation ( OGBC 2 FM).
Because of his impressive performance at The Week, he was
offered permanent employment on completion of his one-year
internship. Barely a year later, in December 2003, Kolawole
distinguished himself as a journalist to watch when he won
double prizes at the RED RIBBON Awards in prestigious categories
sponsored by the United Nations Programme on AIDS ( UNAIDS).
And at 22 , he dusted other senior journalists to the awards,
in spite of his relatively young age. He has been nominated
for several other awards too.
Kolawole believes that through the grace of God and the help
of mentors, he made impact as an intern and has been making
consistent progresss in his journalism career so far. However,
he lamented that due to a number of factors, not many interns
are able to use the training to build their careers or prove
the worth of what they can do if given the opportunity.
" Most times, the number one problem that often confronts
interns is how to find a place to undergo the training. Even
when this is overcome and they eventually find a place for
training, they are not able to exploit the many opportunities
they are open to due to wrong attitude to work and lack of
understanding of what the training is meant to achieve. That
is why, at the end of the internship, many of them fail to
learn or achieve anything significant."
" My reason for writing the book is to tell Nigerian
youths that industrial training has many opportunities which
they can use to their advantage rather than being unnecesssarily
jittery or anxious when they are about to commence the training.
Industrial training is a value opportunity to learn the practical
aspect of the theories already learnt in the classrooms,"
explained Kolawole.
The 115-page book is published by Posterity Media, a Lagos-based
publishing and communication company. It has seven chapters
with topics like Finding a Placement, Understanding and Influencing
the Work Envirionment, and The Ability to Deliver. Others
are You’ll also need Mentors, God First is Success,
Maximising your Potentials and Sustaining your Heights.
.The book has a foreword written by Mr. Dare Babarinsa, founding
editor of TELL, with endorsements from institutions like the
Industrial Training Fund and top editors like Dr. Reuben Abati,
chairman, Editorial Board, The Guardian.
The book is slated for presentation today at the expansive
Events Centre, opposite Afrika Shrine at Alausa, Ikeja, Lagos.
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