It’s really easy for college professors to throw information at you. You sit through two or three classes a day, click through a bunch of power points, take notes and try to internalize everything you hear. You take a quiz or two and get decent grades. But given the opportunity, could you actually apply what you’ve learned?
As a public relations major at Kent State University, I know I am learning a lot. My professors are great and I know they want nothing more than for students to succeed and live up to their potential.
I hear non-stop from my professors about how one day I will have to apply all of this information I was copying down in my notes. One day I was going to have a real job where I would be expected to know all about objectives, strategies, tactics, SEO, media relations and so on. I knew the definitions for those terms, but I don’t think I actually understood them. I was assigned countless projects with scenarios designed to test what I was learning. I struggled, I had no idea where to start. I was just waiting and waiting for the moment when the lightbulb would go off and everything would click. After a while, I knew it was going to take working in a real-world setting to figure it all out.
Doing an internship is so important to me because it presents that real-world opportunity I have been looking for. I can finally apply everything I’ve learned in somewhere other than a classroom or on some made up project. I have come to realize that acing all those PR vocabulary quizzes didn’t matter, taking great notes didn’t matter, none of it matters until that lightbulb goes off and everything clicks.
I am so thankful to have the opportunity to intern at True Digital Communications this summer. I know I will walk away with a better understanding of PR and what it takes to work in an agency setting. I look forward to sharing all the new things I learn along the way!
