Journey to the Workforce: From Student To Intern At Sidi.io

Education

To start off, I’ll tell you a little about myself and my education path. I grew up In Ethiopia and started off at a French school. I then switched to the American system in 4th grade and graduated with an International Baccalaureate diploma.

Then came the pressure and hard choice of choosing which university to go to. Having heard good recommendations from friends and family, Canada was the ideal choice for me. I started my journey at Carleton University pursuing an economics degree. I had high hopes to be in the same field, and have the same career path as my father.

The Turning Point

After two years of economics, I came to a realization: “I can’t do this every day for the rest of my life”. I could not see myself becoming an economist and therefore lost interest in following that career path, It was time for yet another switch!

In the summer of 2016, I decided to do an internship for a marketing agency. That’s when I fell in love with marketing. Turning clients problems into opportunities became my highest interest, I have always been a problem solver and could see myself doing that for a living.

That’s when I heard about the Algonquin College Advertising and Marketing Communications program. I have always had a creative and business side so a combination of the two made this the ideal program for me.

Intern at Sidi.io

The one thing I was really looking forward to was the Co-op (field placement) portion of my program.

The big question everyone asks after college is “so, what now?”.

The next step for me was to find a field placement that would help me further increase my knowledge base and really elevate my practice/experience in Digital Marketing.

That’s when Sidi.io comes in. Through research and good recommendations, I applied for the intern position. Thankfully I got the opportunity to be part of such a strong and dedicated team.

What interested me in Sidi.io was their work experience and company goals. The fact that Riaz Sidi was also a part-time teacher at the college I attended made it an easy choice for me because who better to teach you than a teacher!

During my first week working with Sidi.io and I have already learned so much! I have had the opportunity to job shadow, and work on client projects with the team.

Why I chose Digital Marketing

My main reason behind choosing digital marketing is because we are in the information age, and digital media is only getting more and more popular.

I use a variety of social media platforms every day to keep up with new trends. As a result, I have been able to learn a lot about the digital world . Using these trends, and the knowledge I learned from school, I was really drawn to the world of creating powerful digital marketing strategies.

What i love, and enjoy most about digital marketing is that there are endless opportunities and strategies you can apply. With the power of split testing and experimenting with different ad components, nothing ever has to be the same (unless it’s working!)

One helpful thing about digital marketing is that there are endless tools and resources to help you achieve what you need. This means you are never left in the unknown, all it takes is a little research, know how and nimbleness. This is another reason I gravitated toward Sidi.io, I really resonated with their best practices of being lean and nimble.

Another reason I gravitated toward Sidi.io, is because digital marketing is a lot more cost effective than traditional marketing.

Since a goal of mine is to become an entrepreneur, it’s helpful to learn as much as I can from digital marketing. As the industry is always changing, I can grow with it and implement it in my own company one day.