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SerNet GmbH is donating has been awarding a Germany Scholarship. This time it went to Olga Nikolaeva, who is studying for a master's degree in Arabic and Islamic Studies at the Georg August University. Olga comes from St. Petersburg, where she has already completed a bachelor's degree in International Relations. In February and March, she also completed an internship in SerNet's marketing department and shares her experiences here.
My path to SerNet
In October 2020, I arrived in Göttingen from St. Petersburg to start a master's program at the Georg-August-University after completing my bachelor's degree in International Relations. This was a very challenging time for me – being awarded the Germany Scholarship helped me.
The fact that SerNet GmbH, a company in the field of IT security, had taken on this scholarship initially surprised me. My field of study, Arabic and Islamic Studies, has few points of contact with IT. At the award ceremony for the Deutschlandstipendium scholarships, I then met SerNet managing director Dr. Johannes Loxen. “Everyone should get a fair chance,” he explained to me. That's why SerNet supports students from a wide range of disciplines. The company also offers ‘its’ scholarship holders the opportunity to complete an internship. I decided to take advantage of this: in the marketing department, I was able to acquire practical skills that can later be applied in almost any professional field.
A new perspective: first steps in the world of IT
I started by spending some time going through the SerNet website to get to know the company and its products Samba and verinice . Since I had no experience in the IT field, I had to learn some technical details first. Nevertheless, this research helped me a lot to understand SerNet's history, values and activities – an important basis for my later tasks.
I received my first assignment during this phase: to evaluate the user experience of the SerNet website from a first-time visitor's perspective and to develop possible improvements. The aim was to increase the so-called conversion rate and to ensure that more visitors made direct contact. The SerNet team immediately took up some of my ideas for a better UX and developed them further. This way, I felt directly involved in the process and immediately saw the success of my work.
After getting to know SerNet through the website and through conversations with the administrative team, I started my main tasks.
Effective texts – a passion for writing meets marketing know-how
Even before my internship, I had been intensively involved with writing texts and enjoyed it very much. At SerNet, I was able to expand my skills in a targeted way and learn about new perspectives. With the help of practical tips, for example on the W-questions or the "Call to Action", I wrote both news for the Samba website ("SMB3 Interoperability Lab EMEA: Exclusive Testing Event – extend the Samba eXPerience") and posts for LinkedIn. This gave me insights into how to write texts for different target audiences and media, which I can use in many areas later on.
Creative and multimedia – using design in Canva
I created accompanying graphics in Canva for my texts. This also allowed me to learn about design basics and brand design. Although I had to adhere to the corporate design, I was able to be creative and had plenty of space for my own ideas. Among other things, I created “tiles” for the milestones of the Samba project together with the Sovereign Tech Agency and redesigned speaker cards for the speakers at sambaXP. The most exciting job was creating a LinkedIn carousels for sambaXP – a complete design project. I also visualized an agenda for verinice.XP and helped to prepare the conference in Berlin.
verinice.XP: live in Berlin
For the conference on the ISMS tool verinice, I had the great opportunity to travel to Berlin with the SerNet team and be there in person. To kick off, I attended a meeting at the hotel where all the details of the upcoming conference were discussed. This gave me an overview of the general aspects to be considered when planning a conference. Every morning, I helped prepare the conference room, for example by setting up signs and attaching name tags. Of course, I was also pleased that the conference took place in the center of Berlin – very close to important sights that I was even able to visit.
After my return from Berlin, another big task awaited me that required my full attention and concentration.
Market analysis: verinice in Chile and Mexico?
For three weeks I worked on a large market analysis project. The goal was to collect information about the IT market in Chile and Mexico to evaluate the possibility of introducing verinice in these countries. To do this, I collected publicly available data in three areas: competitive analysis, the open source market, and partner and distribution opportunities.
The biggest challenge for me was understanding technical details and specifics, especially since many websites were only available in Spanish. Nevertheless, this task was very useful as it expanded my research skills and I found some interesting and unexpected results. After the information-gathering phase, I structured all the data, filtered out the most important information and presented it to my colleagues. This was also a good language practice for me, as I am still learning German and the discussion allowed me to practice my speaking skills.
My conclusion: an internship that leaves a lasting impression
Overall, I am very satisfied with my internship at SerNet. I am glad that I ended up in an extremely friendly team that is always willing to support and advise me. I was able to deepen my writing skills and learn the basics of design at the same time. I also got a good understanding of how marketing works. My tasks were always creative, varied and encouraged my personal development. So it's worth thinking outside your own studies and topics.
