Hi Everyone,

My name is Siobhan Negri and I'm in my final semester at Curtin University majoring in public relations and tourism management.

I started my placement at Last Say Communications (LSC) in the semester break. LSC is a small boutique public relations consultancy firm. One of the main reasons why i choose to complete my placement at LSC is because it has a small workplace, with only three consultants. I thought that i may get more out of a small consultancy, with more opportunities to complete hands on PR work and feel more part of a team.

The first couple of days it did feel like i got chucked into the deep end, but it prompted me to learn quickly and not see the tasks as daunting. On my first day i was assigned five stories to write for Intersector magazine. Intersector magazine is a Government magazine released by the Department of the Premier and Cabinet, designed for the Western Australian public service employers. The articles mainly compromise of new initiatives, events and human interest stories of various Government departments. I was given a topic to write about and then i had to do background research on the topic, ring and interview a relevant person from a Government department and then use this information to write the article. At first i was hesitant as i felt that i did not have the journalism background to interview and write a article. However after my first interview i realised that it is not as scary as it first seemed and i was quite capable to complete this task! In actual fact, i enjoyed writing these articles! Through out writing the five articles, i learnt what types of questions where best used to get the information i wanted and i improved my writing style by making the articles more concise and cutting out the word , that!

So far i have enjoyed my time at LSC with my boss being very encouraging and supportive. I'm looking forward to starting some other PR tasks, with another reason for me deciding to do a placement at a consultancy to experience the diversity PR offers. I'm looking forward to hearing other PR 393 experiences and how they compare to mine.