By Filasha Finley
I was a late bloomer. Not in the sense that I was born late (six days early actually), but in the sense that I came into public relations later than most. Public relations is defined as “a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.” Any person who is studying to be a public relations professional knows that is definitely not all what PR is about. There are many different aspects of someone who is in public relations does, including planning, social media, communications and media relations, just to name a few.
People in everyday life are always doing something that relates to PR and it took me until my sophomore year to realize “hey, that person is me!” Throughout high school, I was involved in many different extracurricular activities that also transferred into college. As of right now I am a part of five different organizations and every one of them has helped me become a better person and a better future public relations practitioner.
The one organization I am going to focus on is Pi Sigma Epsilon (PSE). PSE is a coed professional marketing, sales and sales management fraternity that has been a major part of my life since my freshman year. Even though PSE is a marketing fraternity there are many parts of PR that intertwine with things that they do.
As soon as I joined PSE I was pushed to get out of my comfort zone and do things that usually would scare the crap out of me. The first assignment I had to do was go out into the community to talk to local companies about being sponsors for our new member T-shirt project. Now, this doesn’t seem like such a hard thing to do but I was definitely not comfortable just going around and talking to random people. I did it anyhow and end up getting two sponsors! That was one of the first things that PSE did that got me to get out of my comfort zone.
In PR, you have to be able to do media pitches and get people to cover your clients. In order to do this, you have to be willing to put yourself out there and PSE helped me with that. As I got more involved I began to get executive board positions and now I am the social media director, I make posts every week and update the public on what is going on in the fraternity.
All in all, any organization that you are in, whether it is a fraternity or sorority, or if you play a sport, will have a need for public relations. Even if the organizations are not specifically focused on PR, they will offer opportunities for you to practice your PR skills. PSE although it is a sales fraternity but has taught me so much that I have transferred over to being a better PR person. It has gotten me out of my comfort zone when pitching to people, has helped me get used to social media and has showed me that with a great team of people I can accomplish anything.
You may be thinking “what now?” Get out there and get involved! Don’t think you have join specific PR clubs to be able to gain experience. There are opportunities in non-PR organizations that you can be apart that will build your skills that will help you flourish.
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