Hello! My name is Brandon Adam and I am an intern at Let’s Go Surfing in Bondi. I am studying marketing at Bowling Green State University in Ohio in the United States. I have been in Sydney for eight weeks with an internship abroad organization called IES Abroad. I started my program at the beginning of June 2022 and will be leaving Australia at the end of July. I applied to IES Abroad Sydney with very little expectations of what would come of it. I had applied to several different internships with companies in America, but coming to Sydney during my summer break was definitely my first choice. I wanted to have a unique internship experience and working in Australia is certainly that!
After I got accepted into IES Sydney, my program coordinator connected me with Marty at Let’s Go Surfing. I had a video call with him where I learned a little bit about the company and I told him what I was hoping to get out of my internship. I shared my interest and experience in marketing and that I wanted to be able to make a positive impact on the company during my time there. Marty told me that my responsibilities would start small and as long as I kept proving myself, I would gain more freedom and be able to work on more important tasks and projects. At the end of the call I was offered the job and I told him that I would love to come work for LGS. Even then, I didn’t realize how great that decision was going to turn out to be.
On my first day, Marty took me for a walk around Bondi so I could see a little bit of the town and the beach. I was amazed with its beauty and was in awe that it was going to be the place where I would be working for the next two months. When we got back from the walk, Marty told me to get a wetsuit on and to get ready to partake in his next surf lesson. Being from Ohio, I had never surfed in my life but I was so excited to give it a try! It was tough at first, but by the end I found myself being able to stand up on the board…at least some of the time. Needless to say, I was still a long ways away from being a good surfer. Marty told me to try to go out for a surf during my breaks each day so that I could have fun and keep getting better. Most places that I have worked at in the past would just give me fifteen minutes to eat lunch so I was stoked for the opportunity to surf for forty-five minutes at Bondi Beach almost everyday!
I later met with Louise, the marketing director at Let’s Go Surfing. She gave me an idea of some of her thoughts on what I could do during my time here. She expressed to me that if I had any ideas of things that I wanted to do to share so that they could get accomplished. She started off by having me put together a competitor analysis of the other surf schools near each of the LGS locations. She also assured me that if I worked hard and did a good job, then I would continue to gain more responsibilities.
I spent much of my time working in the shop, learning about the business, and interacting with customers. When I first started, it took me a little bit to get used to working for a new company (especially one that specialized in something I knew nothing about) and working in a new country. The more I worked, the more I learned and the more comfortable I got. All of the LGS staff were so helpful and friendly to me which made the transition go smoothly. I enjoyed interacting with customers and I loved seeing how happy people were to come in and get a surf lesson!
A few marketing jobs that I had while at Let’s Go Surfing were constructing a SWOT analysis of the company and each of its locations, producing a video of a surf lesson, and creating content for social media. During the course of constructing the SWOT analysis, I spoke with some of the managers at LGS to get some insight about the company. I used that information as well as my own observations to identify where the company was at and what opportunities they could take advantage of.
For the video that I produced, I had some of my friends from the same internship program as me come to Bondi for a lesson. They all had either never surfed before or surfed very little so they were so excited to come! I loved getting to show them where I worked and what I get to do almost everyday! I was able to film a large amount of the lesson and edit it into the final product.
My experience during my two months at Let’s Go Surfing has been incredible! I have been very pleased with the work that I have been able to do, the experiences that I have been able to have, and the people that I have been able to meet. A year ago I would have never guessed that I would work at a surf shop in Australia. Working somewhere as beautiful as Bondi has been unbelievable. These two months in Sydney have truly been some of the best times of my life and working at Let’s Go Surfing has been a big part of that! I cannot thank the staff and everyone at Let’s Go Surfing enough for the incredible experience!