How did an English major get pulled into the field of communications? Well, since I didn’t want to be a lawyer or a teacher, I decided to use my writing and editing abilities from my English major in a different approach: public relations.
Applying for PR internships with absolutely no communications experience was risky; I was quite fortunate to receive an internship with Profiles, Inc. I knew that this internship would be a crash course in PR for me, but I had no idea how much I’d learn about the business in just one summer.
Over these past three months, I have learned that PR is not like literature; one must learn to cut out the fluff and transform a 100-page novel to a two-paragraph press release. It is a PR firm’s job to get their clients’ message out there clearly, concisely, and boldly; in order to do that, one must master technical skills beyond anyone’s common sense of “that probably doesn’t need to go in the press release.”
I thought I was a pretty good writer before this internship, and I was, just in areas aside from press releases and calendar listings. But after spending the summer with a team of amazing ladies who have taught me more about PR than any college course can, the (technical) writing abilities I gained now seem like common sense.
Through this internship, I have merely dipped my toes in the huge ocean of possibilities that public relations can present.
-Hannah Myers, Intern
This is great. Good luck!