As a student registered in the University of Waterloo’s co-op program I was given the opportunity to join TK Event’s team on an eight-month work term, as a Customer Experience Coordinator. When I first started at TK Events I had no idea what to expect. I had worked a previous job in events but never to the scale of TK. I remember the first week I started the whole team was getting ready to go on site for one of our larger client events, a Kickoff for over 1000 attendees. Not intimidating at all! I started assisting with this project right away and the following week I was on site at the event in Toronto shadowing two co-workers, Nicole and Patty, to learn the onsite registration experience. On the last day just as all our attendees were getting ready to leave, 500 of our attendees’ flights got canceled due to a major snowstorm. We all came together working along with the Hotel to extend our room block and the travel agency to reschedule flights while mediating communication with attendees about the status of their flights and hotel. In the end we were able to get everyone’s travel and hotel sorted. In the middle of everything that was happening, I thought to myself ‘Well this is going to be an interesting term’ and knew I was going to love it.

Over the past eight months, TK Events has provided me with a work term experience that every co-op student dreams of having. Constantly being surrounded by a supportive, outgoing, dedicated team that creates an amazing culture and fosters strong work ethic. TK provided me with a real experience of what it would be like to work in events after graduation by letting me take the lead on projects, giving me large tasks and allowing me to run with it, having freedom to execute the task as I saw fit, and having confidence in my ability to get the job done. Working in a fast-paced, demanding industry allowed me to learn new skills and improve old skills that I will be able to transfer into a new work environment or use during the rest of my time in school. Some of the skills I have developed or improved include, time management, organization, independent working, oral and written communication, HTML & CSS, excel reporting and data manipulation, coordinating constantly changing travel and hotel blocks.

After my first few months working at TK I was very intrigued with what the other half of our team did on the event coordination side. Entering the 2nd leg of my work-term I requested the opportunity to gain experience as an event coordinator, Without hesitation I was paired with the events team assisting with venue sourcing, contacting vendors, and contributing to the planning process. This allowed me to better understand the event industry and get more experience in the different avenues you can take when working in events.

Overall, working at TK was an amazing experience, being able to work on a project from conception to completion and seeing all the work we have done come to life was very rewarding. I am so grateful for all the experiences that I had, being able to work on large projects for leading brands. Each project I worked on provided me with a unique learning opportunity, keeping the work we do interesting and exciting. I couldn’t have asked for a better team to work with. It would be safe to say that I have caught the event bug.

Alyssa McCulloch
University of Waterloo
Recreation and Sport Business Co-op Student

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