By Alea Wittler, 1910 PR Associate
I am a first-generation college student from Colorado, and this is my first year at WT.
I live in the residence halls, and being First Gen meant that my parents didn't really have any ideas or advice on going to college, and I live hours from home.
All these things together made me feel like I was shoved right into the deep end with no life jacket!
However, since being here and having to learn everything by myself, I have found a family in my professors and friends.
I wasn't planning on taking 1910 PR until it was suggested to me by a professor. Even though public relations isn’t my major, I thought it would still be an interesting thing to try!
What is college if not a time to try things that interest you?
I spent much of my time this semester working on the Bateman Team, which is a national competition funded and run by the Public Relations Society of America.
Being a part of the Bateman Team allowed me to learn a lot about working on a campaign with a team (something I’ve never done before) and what planning, executing, and reporting on a campaign looked like.
The five people on my team this year were wonderful, and once the campaign was over, we carried over into another wonderful family of people—the rest of the staff of 1910 PR!
I learned SO MUCH from my time in 1910! I learned about the PESO model, the backside of Meta’s analytics, what preparing for a speaking event is like, practice with writing press releases for events, what having a story on the WT website requires, and how crucial having and working with a team for all these things is!
My favorite thing was that we were working on assignments for real clients. The things we were working on and writing were being used, sent out, and published in the real world! This was a bit nerve-wracking at first but really gratifying later on.
I have really enjoyed this semester learning new things through my time on the Bateman Team and with 1910!