by Shelby Wallis Forrest, Account Team Leader
"Welcome to 1910 PR, we are so glad to have you on staff," was the first interaction I had with 1910.
"On staff?" I thought, that can't be right, I am a student. Not only a student, but a full-time administrative assistant for a school district, a mother to two young children, which is a full time job in itself, and a wife.
The thought of dropping the class crossed my mind after reading that, but I was curious about being on staff with 1910 PR.
And my curiosity led me to one of the most beneficial, productive, and absolutely wonderful courses of my college career.
Shortly after that introduction, class started, and I learned many new things.
My team was created and the work began. While I have never considered myself a leader, 1910 PR was something I felt naturally called to lead in. I wanted success for everyone on my team and I wanted to create a positive outlook for this class, because like myself, I knew that they had busy lives and having an effective, open leader was important. Providing that for them was one of the most rewarding things I have ever done and being a team leader gave me insight on how to effectively communicate and get work done within a fast-paced workplace.
I knew that I wanted to embrace this class and that I had many areas that I wanted to grow in. One of the areas was design. Having never worked with Canva or any Adobe product, I felt that it was important for me to embrace these applications to really understand different elements in designing effective graphics for clients that I was helping represent. I was surprised at how naturally this came to me when we started playing with different tools within each application and learning how to apply certain elements to different graphics to maximize effectiveness.
1910 PR not only provided me with the tools, but a wonderful team and leaders within the organization that really helped me understand how to make things look great and appeal to different audiences.
Another area that I knew I needed to learn more about was creating content on shared media that was rich with information, but didn't bore the audience. Creating content with emojis and learning how to write one-liners was something that I will utilize in my current workplace and many others in the future. Understanding how to reach many people within a society is something that I value more now than ever. I also really enjoyed learning how to apply this skill in writing news releases and sending out Mailchimp messages for different Distinguished Lecture Series events.
1910 PR is a game changer for communications majors.
Learning how to apply yourself with real clients and how to work with a PR organization is an opportunity that all students should take. I am so glad that I allowed my curiosity to get the best of me. I have not only grown within the PR realm, but as an aspiring leader. Thank you, 1910 PR, Dr. Kinsky, and all staff for a wonderful fall semester. This is not goodbye, but a "see you later!"