Most of my fellow seniors are nervous for graduation. Well, not graduation, but the abrupt change of lifestyle we will experience afterward. The transition is a day looming in the near future. The potential for the rest of our lives is around the corner, but the majority of graduating seniors don’t know what they will be doing after the caps are tossed into the air. Frightening!
We can only hope that the classes we’ve had and the experiences we encountered throughout college instilled valuable lessons within us to help snag the best jobs. In my Advanced PR Writing class with Kelli Matthews, we are spending a lot of our time learning aspects of social media. We have set up our blogs, made a social media strategy for a company and created a podcast. Without real-life job experience I question how much all of this information is used.
According to “my 2 cents” written by David Reich, social media knowledge will help our future in PR. It is the method that most PR practitioners will use to disseminate their information to various media outlets. Apparently we are learning the most important aspects of PR.
Other than social media, the core of PR is learning how to write. Chip and Dan Heath explain the acronym SUCCESs in their book Made to Stick. The trick to writing, and writing well, is simplicity, unexpectedness, concreteness, credibility, emotions and stories.
It’s good to know when you’re learning the top aspects of a field. After graduation we will find that it’s not what we know, but if we know how to use the material for our specific clients’ needs.
Journeys Through Journalism 