All Things Must Come to an End: PRSSANC Day 4

Day 4 of National Conference was probably my favorite day.

We started off the morning by attending the career development exhibition at 10:30 am. It was again set up in the regency ballroom. There were vendors everywhere; from PR companies to grad schools.

Kat and I walked around the large room with our resumes and business cards in hand, ready to hand them out like candy. We talked to Edelman, Ketchum, Lewis PR, Linda Roth PR, a table about raising awareness for organ donation, plus a ton of other companies that I can't remember the name of at the moment. We asked questions about employment, internships, graduate school, experience, what they look for in a potential employee. It was very useful and a bit intimidating at times. On the other hand I felt very inspired; being surrounded by other students and professionals in the field that I love knowing we are all going to make an impact in this industry and in turn, the world.

I stopped by the Elon University table and spoke with a woman about their graduate school program. She explained that it is intense and fast paced but the students coming out of the program have no issues getting a job. She also mentioned that the students get put in groups and are given a client to work for and actually end up presenting their campaign and ideas to the company. The students also travel internationally during their schooling - this was and still is very enticing to me. I want to travel like you would not believe.

I also talked to Marist College about grad school and signed up for more information. Their program is all online which is cool, but I think for my personality I would need the majority of my classes to be in person. I like to student- teacher interaction and connections that are formed through the classroom experience.

We ran into friends we had met throughout our time there. And we actually got to talking with executive board members from a chapter in California. The president was super helpful and encouraging. We all exchanged business cards and I plan to reach out to them for advice and just to chat/ catch up sometimes soon.

After walking around and schmoozing for a while we left and went to get some lunch at a cute little restaurant across the street,and check out of our hotel. We were leaving in a few hours so we had to run to our room and pack our things and get them stored until we were ready to leave. Kat wrote about her experience and what she learned in an article for our school's online blog/ newspaper. Check it out at BUnow.








The final session we went to was hands down my favorite. The speakers, Ryan and Brandi whom were PRSSA members and eventually were on the national e-board, each went on a different path in PR. Ryan was an intern for a company called Taylor. He was eventually offered a full time position and loves it. Brandi on the other hand works for IBM, a corporate PR company. Both of these individuals were so knowledgable and friendly. Hearing their backgrounds and what it is like to work for In-House vs. Agency was extremely helpful. I had no idea what I wanted to do or which one I would prefer. And honestly I am still open to either.


Brandi talked about making a wish list of companies that I would want to work for. Have some big dream jobs and then ones that we think are more attainable.

Ryan said, "Location, location, location!" If you know you want to work in a big city, like Brandi in NYC, then look there. Wherever it is that you want to go, go. Don't let it hold you back. Take a risk, be brave and try it out. If you never try you will never know. Along with that if you want to live in a small town, suburban or city stay true to that. Make yourself comfortable.

They also noted to be aware of your personality. And use your skills and personality in the most effective way possible.

Kat and I went up to Brandi afterwards and she was seriously one of the nicest and most approachable people I have ever met. She wrote down her email for us and told her to reach out to her for anything. She even invited Kat to her birthday party and/or to meet up for coffee because they live in close proximity to each other, and Kat is graduating in December.

For the complete list of the program outline of conference click here.

Oh and I might as well announce that the 2015 PRSSA National Conference will be held in Atlanta, Georgia. You better believe I am going to try my best to be there.

Sunday Funday at Conference

Sunday morning we woke up, showered, got dressed and ready to go for the day. Oh, and we made our really crappy cup of coffee in the wannabe hotel Keurig.

We attended the keynote speaker session first thing, along with the rest of the PRSSA students in attendance at the conference.

Afterwards, my friend Meghan who is from Elon University and I went to the Sports PR: In it to Win it session. Kat attended the Restaurant PR one. Sports PR was presented by Ketsia Colimon and Rebecca Timms. These women both have very different stories as to how they got in the sports PR world. Ketsia works for the Washington Mystics and Wizards. Rebecca previously worked for the Flyers and now does PR for the Philadelphia 76ers.

I am a HUGE Flyers fan so I loved hearing about that. It got my gears turning about applying for a NHL internship. She did mention that the employers in sports PR want you to be passionate about the team you are working for; know who is on the team and the important logistics and information about the team; but they do NOT want a super fan. It is a very fine line. That is something I would have to work on. Hockey and football are my favorite sports and if I ever worked in that industry I would need to put my fan mode on low, which would be very hard for me to do.

This seminar was not all that I had hoped it would be.

Kat really loved the restaurant session by Linda Roth PR. She came back to our room and said she thinks she found what she wants to go into. It was all she talked about all night.

We intended to go to the other session, and I am honestly kind of mad at myself for not going. But you see...we fell asleep. We were so exhausted from all the learning, being up late and waking up early that we slept for a good 3 hours. Ooopss!

That night we were again going out to dinner with her mom and aunt. This time we had to take the metro by ourselves! It was exciting and scary all at the same time, but we did it! We got there early and so we had some time to walk around Chinatown. We walked over to the Verizon Center. We took a ton of pictures. We went to an Urban Outfitters and browsed for a bit.

The restaurant we ate at is called Zaytinya, it is Mediterranean cuisine. José Andrés is the owner and he is a very well known chef. He has been on the Food Network, and he also owns a bunch of other restaurants.

This video features some of the food from the restaurant. We had about 8-10 dishes. They are all small plates so we shared each dish. Something I loved was that we got fresh pita bread all the time. As soon as we were low, they would refill it. We had scallops, shrimps, bass, piyaz ( which is these large beans with kale and tomato), lamb, brussels sprouts, tzatziki and I know I am forgetting something. It was easily some of the best food I have ever had. I would highly recommend this place to anyone.

Once we were finished with dinner Kat wanted to go see the White House and the monuments so we walked from the restaurant. It was about 10 or so blocks away and took us around 20 minutes. Washington is truly beautiful at night. We ended our evening there and headed back on the metro to the hotel.


Day 3 complete.

Day 2 of PRSSANC

Saturday:

We woke up Saturday morning excited. Why you might ask? FREE FOOD. We put on our professional look and headed downstairs to find the continental breakfast. After finding our new friends from Michigan, we sat together enjoyed our food and talked about what we were expecting from the sessions that day. We also talked about roll call and what the other chapters were doing; we were still trying to find an ending to ours. CLOCK'S TICKING PEOPLE!!

After breakfast we headed to the regional ballroom for the keynote speaker. Her name is Pam Jenkins and she is the president of Powell Tate. She talked for about 45 minutes. She went through her background and how she got where she is today. She offered advice for us eager students in the audience. We feverishly wrote down words that she said; and in some cases we tweeted them. Someone said that PR is the only major where it is not considered rude to be on your phone while at work, or in this case at a conference/meeting. And it's so true. We are masters of multitasking and you will never find us without our phones. It's part of the industry, and we like it that way.

Roll call was up next and because Bloomsburg starts with a "B" we knew we were going to be one of the first groups to go. The National President, who is a student at a college I forget the name of, simply called each university in alphabetical order. When your school is called you stand and do your roll call chant/ song/ whatever you came up with. Actually, I should note that the national board did theirs first. They reworded the lyrics to Iggy Azeala's song "Fancy"- it was hysterical. Roll call took over an hour with all of the chapters that were present.

Our's was, "We're from BloomU and we're here to stay, we love PR gonna do it all day. We're Huskies and we know, and we ain't afraid to show it!"

After that we grabbed some lunch at a local spot, not far from the hotel with some of our new friends.

Finally, it was time for our first professionally lead session. We chose to go to the "First Job Survival Guide" seminar. We got advice on everything from our resumes, interview tips, LinkedIn, networking, and a ton of other useful information. Overall, it was a VERY insightful and useful session that I am glad I went to.

Next up was, "A Different Kind of Social: Exploring Social Marketing." This session started out well but I lost in interest part of the way through. It was a lot of repetitive information. However, I definitely learned something from each session I went to, no matter how much or how little I liked the presentation. I was a little disappointed with this one because it was presented by a big PR agency, Ketchum.  Like the rest of the crowds in both of these sessions, I was quickly writing notes and tweeting statements they made that I thought were useful or funny or important; #PRSSANC.

The last session wasn't one that I particularly NEEDED to go to, but my friend really wanted to go so I  went with her. Nicole Garner, from the Garner Circle Inc. was one of two presenters on the topic of Entertainment PR. My friend, Kat, had talked her up and was literally SO excited to see her. It was a good presentation...I guess. Honestly all she really seemed to care about was promoting her book and getting people to buy it. Her main concern was not on helping us become more aware of the subject, or how to help us. There was only time for 1 student question at the end of the session. We were disappointed, as well as a number of other students.

The learning was over for today, or so we thought.

We went out to dinner at a new placed in Dupont Circle, Washington D.C called Ripple. Her mom and aunt came and picked us up at the hotel and took us to dinner. This was an area of D.C that I had never seen before. It wasn't the typical tourist area, though it really was not that far from places such as the White House or the Smithsonian Museums. The food was delicious and the area was amazing. I would describe it as a cleaner, better smelling, nice version of New York City. The most useful thing I learned was that I could see myself living or working there in the future. I fell in love with the area, something I never saw coming.

#PRSSANC Day 1

The 2014 PRSSA National Conference was incredible.

It took place in Washington, D.C. from October 10-14 at the Omni Shoreham hotel.
Chapters from all over the United States were there, plus a few from international countries.

Myself and another girl, Kat, were the only two representatives from the Bloomsburg University chapter. We spent 4 hours in a car driving to D.C. Thursday night and kicked off our weekend of fun.

So you are probably wondering exactly what PRSSANC is. Every fall there is a national conference hosted in a major city in the US for PRSSA members to attend. During this time they meet other students, PR professionals, attend workshops and seminars that are focused on their particular interests in the public relations field.


If you are interested in looking at this years program, including session titles and speaker information click here.

Let me break down the conference by day for you.

Friday:

We knew the agency tours were early Friday morning but we weren't quite sure how it was going to work so we decided to go down to the lobby early; and good thing we did! On the elevator ride down we talked to a girl who asked us which agency we were assigned to and our faces had to have resembled sheer confusion and worry. WE NEVER GOT ASSIGNED ONE! In a panic, we found someone in charge and explained to them that we had signed up for a tour, yet never received an email. They told us there was an issue with the online sign up and that there was a limited number of spots per agency and it never removed the option to sign up for a tour.

Disappointed was an understatement. But come on, we are PR majors and we make things happen! Two of the girls on the national conference committee went out of there way to get us on a tour. In fact, we got to go to the agency we wanted, Edelman.

We got in our group, hopped on the metro and were on our way!! This agency tour was by far one of the highlights of the trip for me. I learned so much from everyone who spoke to us. I even got to sit down one-on-one with an Edelman employee and ask her questions and advice. It was amazing and so worth all the confusion from the morning.

When we returned from that we were STARVING! We quickly registered and found some food at an adorable Irish joint called Murphy's. It was delish!

Chapter development sessions were up next. These are student-run session designed to offer suggestions and tips on how to improve your chapter and make the most out of the experience. We attended "How I Met My Mentor and "The Big Event" Planning 101. Then, "Creating You Network: Branching Out Beyond the Meeting" and "It's More Than Just a Meeting: Powerful PRogramming  and How to Plan It".  We learned a lot from those student groups to take back to our chapter at Bloomsburg University.

Later that evening we attended the social event. We walked the red carpet and got out picture taken in front of a PRSSA backdrop. We felt pretty awesome, not gonna lie. We ended up meeting a group of girls and their advisor from Elon University in North Carolina. We spent the rest of the weekend hanging out with them and going to sessions together. We all got close and I still am in contact with them! We danced and had a blast with all the students attending conference. That is one thing I love about being a PR major, everyone is lively and outgoing and not afraid to have fun!

The first day of conference came to an end faster than we wanted, but we were excited to see what the rest of the weekend had to offer. With our new friends by our side we danced the night away at the social and chatted about our schools, PR programs and experiences.

Check out this slideshow of conference. Check back for the breakdown of Saturday's events!

PRSSA...What?

If you are not a public relations/ communications student chances are you have no idea what PRSSA is. And if you are a PR student and have not yet joined your school's chapter...shame on you.

PRSSA stands for Public Relations Student Society of America. This was formed off of the parent chapter for professionals in the field known as PRSA.

According to prssa.org this group is the following: "The Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) is the foremost organization for students interested in public relations and communications. We seek to advance the public relations profession by nurturing generations of future professionals. We advocate rigorous academic standards for public relations education, the highest ethical principles and diversity in the profession."

It is a resource that is to be utilized. 

PRSSA has chapters not only all over the United States, but in Argentina, Columbia and I believe a chapter was just formed in Peru. Needless to say, this group is expanding across the globe. It is made up of more than 11,000 students in 300 plus chapters worldwide.

The benefits, networking opportunities and experiences that this group provides for its members is bar none. Being a member of this group will boost your resume; make you a well-rounded individual; connect you with other students and PR professionals who you might now have met otherwise; and enable you to become the best possible version of yourself.

This group means more to me than I can express. 

If you are interested in mass communications, media relations, public relations or anything of that sort I highly encourage you to reach out and join PRSSA. Go to the website prssa.org, contact your advisor if you need help. And if your school does not already have a chapter, no worries! You can start a chapter at your university or become an affiliate member of a nearby chapter.

Experimental Blog

Hello! So...this is not my first post on Blogger, but it is my first post in a while. Typically I use Wordpress to create and publish my thought and opinions in blog form. However, Dr. Ganahl insisted that we use Blogger for some reason and thus, here I am. Let's see if I can remember how to edit and customize features on Blogger.