Humility is Key

The one thing that I believe we students tend to forget, at least for myself is that I forget that I am a student sometimes. Why do I say so?

Slight deviation**

I’m going into my 3/4^th week at Alzheimer’s Australia WA. As from now on, I only go in twice a week as Uni has just begun! Just when I was getting use to the weekdays of 9-5, Uni had to start.

Anyways, back to my earlier point. After all this while doing my placement, it has taught me one valuable lesson and that is to always remember I am a PR student and still in a learning process. Not until I wrote some media releases only then it got me really thinking, and especially after they were heavily edited (a fair amount of amendment) by my supervisor. Painful isn’t it! For me, I felt it was one of the hardest thing I went through but I am totally optimistic about it knowing it’ll serve a better outcome after all. He did give his reasons as to why he made some changes as well which helped me understand how was the release suppose to be geared towards. Most important is what you want is what the organization wants. I hope this make sense.

One can go through such experience and the natural responds that may apply to some include the following. We may think to ourselves “The bit I wrote was much better!”, or the other extreme which is “How am I a qualified PR person?”. I must say, it can be a bit of a pinch to our ego but it will prove to be quite a rich experience, well at least for myself that is. One thing that I learnt through this experience is that I am still a student and whatever I go through its still a learning process.

Teamwork. If I may say so, I believe that in the PR industry is most of the time a team effort. I mean let’s look at events, crisis management or the other disciplines under the PR umbrella is very much a mutual, edifying symbiosis (I hope I got this term right). Whether it be merely writing a press release there is that team effort of at least two – not all the time but most of the time. Some of the consultancies out there even have two staffs (at least) to proof read each release before it is sent out to the media outlet. So, it’s a good thing.

More updates on this week-

My supervisor and I went all the way eastwards to Parkerville/Mundaring region for an interview session with the family of a client (here in Alzheimer’s Australia we call the people living with dementia, clients). This will be included in a segment for our newsletter. Apart from that, I also updated to a section of our website. This section had to do with the "New technologies assisting people with dementia".

For this week, I’d visited our respite home – the day care centre for Alzheimer’s patients. It was quite an experience. Apart from the media releases, paperwork, media relations and all that PR stuff that we’re required to do (for pr 393)… I got to see what our organization was REALLY about. It was caring for a bunch of people. I was really moved by the experience after seeing whom we were actually serving. It motivated me a lot.

Just to bring to mind a little bit, I am doing my placement with Alzheimer’s Australia WA. Based on experience, I’ve spoken to a few people during the week 1 1st orientation class and got to know a bit on the general perception on working for a NFP organization as less ‘glamorous’. I beg to differ. I think it’s equally a rich experience as working for the likes of the big PR firms or even major conglomerates. Of course, there are a couple of things that is done differently but it still contributes to our learning and that is key to this unit!

Alright, I think I’ve said enough so I shall put a stop to my post for this time. Hope you are all doing well in your respective placements and are always positive about it.

Till next time then.