Hi future PR practitioners,
This will
be my last post and it will wrap up some of the things that weren't taught
and experienced in previous PR units. I firmly believe that a PR degree is just
a starting point and as Harrison (2011, 15) has said, “Graduation is not an end
to study. It is the start of a lifelong process”. By now, I can tell that only
a portion of what I have learnt at university will be useful in the workplace
because not only I will always be learning new things as a PR practitioner but
also some of these things have to be experienced. Likewise, PR is a
fast-evolving profession, so every PR practitioner has to constantly adapt to
the changes in this demanding profession.
Things I didn't learn and
experience at university:
1.
Drafting media releases and communication plans in French (Written
communication is mostly done in French in Mauritius and most PR Practitioners
need to have an excellent grasp of the French language)
2. Media
monitoring – Writing and sending daily Media Alerts to clients on positive and
negative articles about them.
3.
Calculating Advertising Value Equivalency (AVE) for media coverage of PR
generated news stories by measuring the dimensions of these articles and
multiplying to the newspapers’ advertising rates.
4.
Assisting in Press Conferences – Greeting journalists, marking their presence,
noting down their contact details and distributing goodies/media kits to them.
5.
Contacting and following up with journalists – confirming if they have received
invitations for event/media function/press conference/round table and calling
them again to mark their presence.
6. Working
without a proper brief – Sometimes, we are not given a written brief for a particular
task while at university we always had those for every PR assignment that we
had to submit.
7.
Implementing a PR Plan – We've been writing a few PR plans for real life
clients at university although we've never executed any of these and
this is the most complex part.
Although
this internship is just a foretaste of the real thing since it was relatively
short and we didn't experience everything, it actually prepares us to
join the workplace confidently. Moreover, I do believe that I've done
quite a lot in one month and learnt many new things. If it wasn't for
the PR 393 Professional Practice unit, my knowledge and understanding of PR
would be limited to only general PR concepts and guidelines. So, kudos to
Curtin for having introduced that unit a few years back because it certainly
allowed us to put some of the teachings of the other PR units into practice.
Okay fellow PR 393 students, now that most of us have already completed our internships and we are nearing the end of this semester, it's time to move on to other things. It felt great to share my internship experience with you and to read about yours during the last few months. I would like to seize this opportunity to wish you
all best of luck with the report writing and for your future endeavors.
P.S: Do
you guys have any anything else to add to the list above? You’re most welcome to do
so in your comments :)
Much love,
Houmaira Ramjaun
15102108
CTI, Mauritius
References:
Harrison, Kim. 2011. Strategic
Public Relations - A practical guide to success. South Yarra: Palgrave
Macmillan
2 comments:
Hi Houmaira,
Many thanks for these deep and well thought remarks on your internship experience. They show that you have been engaging seriously with a profession you wish to embrace, if I am right.
Real business world is always a mile away from what one may expect after university years which equip graduates with tools, methods, and some industry knowledge.
The rest is work experience so much sought after by employers. Businesses need those having a good social network (a thick address book), an understanding of unwritten industry and social codes, etc.
But I do not think we have to know everything or be a perfect PR: it is both impossible and not wished: PR are also human after all and what makes a difference is to be genuine and one's real self (remember "narrative selves" module?)
As you said in your third post: "Keep Calm and Stay Professional." I would keep only the last part which sums well what we are trying to be-come, day-after-day."
Hello Houmaira,
Thank you for enabling us all the tasks you had to do in your respective organisation. All these tasks might be difficult but the most important behind is that you learn something from them. Having an internship at Radio One, I can tell you that to be a Public Relations practitioner, someone needs be motivated. From the perspective of being a journalist, it is true that the PR always contact and do the follow up. Hope you enjoyed your internship there.
Cheers,
Lorry
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