Some brief updates for my family and friends and anyone else rollin’ by-

I’m at a place in life where I never thought I would be:

• I love my job and my company and my coworkers
• I have a short commute via the metro
• I live with my long-term boyfriend (we’re almost at the 4 year mark as of writing this!)
• I’m completely in control of my life and I love that!
• I’m happy!

So what now?

Honestly, I have no idea. 

For the short term:

I really need to get back to the gym and clean eating. I’ve gained back just about all the weight I lost in 2017 and it really sucks.

For the long term:

I guess I should be saving money now? Whether that’s for a wedding, a car, or a house, I have no idea. But I feel like it’s an adult thing to do- have a decent savings account.

It’s been a whirlwind the last 9 months since I graduated and moved out on my own and started my own life. I feel like the rest of the year will just be time to really settle into this new chapter of life and then see what 2020 will bring!

Thanks for reading!

In December of 2017, ODU PRSSA was given the opportunity to host an event for the ODU Communication Department ePortfolio team. Professors Alison Lietzenmayer and Gary Beck approached us with the idea of a collaboration that would benefit both parties; PRSSA members would get the chance to gain real experience and the ePortfolio team would be able to hand off some of the weight on their shoulders. Also, we got paid! In exchange for our PR and marketing services, the ePortfolio team was able to set aside some money that went straight to PRSSA’s bank account and helped fund our annual spring trip. This was a huge milestone for us as a chapter because it was our first ‘for-hire’ job. The event was called the ODU Communication ePortfolio Team’s Signature Event: 5^th Year Connections & Reflections. I know, it’s a mouthful.

Meanwhile, PRSA Hampton Roads (our parent chapter) decided to revamp their annual awards ceremony that year and added a new category: student entries. What a coincidence, right? We knew we had to submit something.

After many hours, many emails, and a hurricane, we finally pulled together an awards entry the week that it was due to be submitted. I have never written any sort of document like this one, so I googled the heck out of “PRSA Awards Winning Entry” and found out that all winning entries from every PRSA chapter throughout the nation are uploaded online! I love the internet.

Not only did I get to read some amazing case studies, but I was also able to get a better idea of what the judges were looking for. You can find my entry on my Portfolio page here.

Although PRSSA’s faculty advisor, Brendan, was banking on the fact that we were probably the only ones submitting anything for the student entries, I was still incredibly nervous. I submitted it as a program under special events, so we weren’t just competing with other students- we were competing with everyone else submitting their special event.

Fast forward a few weeks and the awards ceremony came. Admittedly, my spirits were down. It was a rough week. I came in with low expectations but secretly still hoped for a shout-out. As they finally started announcing the special events winners, my heart was racing and my palms were so slick I almost dropped my glass of water as I went to take a sip. I could barely focus on my food and I was also incredibly paranoid that I would trip and fall if I did have to walk up to the front.

Drum roll please…

WE WON! I wouldn’t have written an entire blog post if we didn’t, honestly. We won an excellence award for our entry and the judges even noted they “especially liked that a survey link was sent out to all guests after.”

I felt so freaking cool walking up there. And then, in true “dad” fashion, Brendan raced up behind me and bent his 6’4” frame and snapped a picture on his phone. If my adrenaline wasn’t pumping so fast and I wasn’t so focused on not tripping, I probably would’ve cried.

Everything was a blur for the next couple minutes as I sat down and the other people at our table congratulated us. Brendan immediately pulled out his phone to start tweeting about our victory.

Honestly, I was barely paying attention after that until the emcee moved onto the big award, Best in Show. He declared, “This entry had the HIGHEST score out of all the entries with 99 out of 100 possible points.”

 

“And the winner of Best in Show is: Old Dominion University Chapter of Public Relations Student Society of America!”

 

WE WON! AGAIN! BEST IN SHOW! Brendan and I looked at each other in pure, unadulterated disbelief. I walked up there again, feeling twice as freaking cool. Now we were really getting everybody’s attention- it was unbelievable that a student entry won Best in Show!

After the ceremony concluded and we finished posting pictures on our respective social media accounts, I was beaming as people came up and congratulated me. I mingled with my former internship supervisors from The Meridian Group and other professionals that I was more acquainted with as we took group pictures.

I sent pictures to my family and, even though they have no idea what the award was for or who gave it out or how much work was put into it, they were super proud nonetheless. I also have ODU PRSSA and the ODU Communication Department to thank, as I wouldn’t be in this position if it weren’t for the opportunities that they gave me. This is undoubtedly going to be the highlight of my college career. Also, if you were curious, the two awards are now proudly displayed on my bookshelf in my bedroom.

As graduation is approaching, (61 days! but I’m not counting…) my LinkedIn and Facebook feeds are slowly starting to populate with posts from my peers about getting interviews, job offers or some even accepting positions halfway around the world already.

The one thing they all have in common: they are all in a STEM field. For those who aren’t aware, STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.

When I finally decided that public relations/communication was the career that I wanted to pursue, I knew that it was going to be hard. It’s very well-understood in this industry that there are about a thousand qualified candidates per available job at any given moment. Communication is now the second most popular college major, according to The Princeton Review. In an area that is heavily STEM and military focused such as Norfolk, Va., well-paying communication jobs are incredibly hard to come by. Finding one that wants an entry-level, recent graduate adds on another hundred pounds of hay around the needle.

Seeing other people my age getting such immediate responses from such prominent companies like Microsoft, Amazon, ADP (just to name a few) gets extremely disheartening very quickly. Most days, it feels like companies only care about software developers, business analysts, engineers or accountants.

Amidst all of the social media posts and unsolicited advice from professionals around me, I often have to remind myself of why I’m still pursuing PR in the first place. Why didn’t I just tough it out and continue with computer science? Maybe I should have studied business or finance or accounting?

Why does it feel like I’m never going to be wanted?

Then I remember that if there were no PR people, nobody would even know about STEM!

We are the ones who decide which brands become household names, we write the speeches that capture American hearts, we give voices to the silenced and we are the ones who share with the world the latest innovations from the STEM fields.

Every industry needs public relations people, even if they don’t know it.

We are the ones who actually run the world, they just haven’t realized it yet.

Last fall, I completed an internship at a local mid-sized agency in my area and fell even more in love with public relations. It was my first internship, so I was understanding (although still a little bitter) about the fact that it was unpaid. Students in my area usually take on an unpaid internship to gain experience and fill in their resume first before landing a paid one. After the semester ended, I was naively confident that I would be able to land a paid internship or co-op, because, “duh! I have experience now! Everyone will want me!”

This was not the case.

Not only did I not get any offers, but I ended up being overwhelmed with classwork and my responsibilities as President of the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA for short). It was a learning experience for me to accept that no one wanted to hire me. I also had to constantly reassure myself that I still had time- I had all summer and the following fall semester to get another internship before graduating.

Mid-spring, I started applying to any internships I could find. I was at a point in my life where I couldn’t afford to take on another unpaid internship, so in order to get some sort of compensation, I had to explore other fields. After a few months, a couple anxiety attacks about my future, two interviews, and a new e-board to train, I finally got an offer! It was totally unexpected, honestly.

The only downside was that it was completely unrelated to public relations. The internship was for one of the largest third party logistics companies in the world that handles shipping for companies like Dollar Tree, Walmart, Stihl, Target, Amazon, and many, many more. The offer was too good for me to refuse, and hey- I didn’t have anything else going on this summer, so I accepted it.

It wasn’t very clear what my responsibilities were when I applied, so I was excited to learn more about a different communication field.

Within two weeks, I knew the job wasn’t for me.

My first week was dedicated to learning about the company and getting comfortable with the main software that is used. After that, I spent all my time creating shipments that were called “can-gets” which are basically potential shipments. I would build the shipment in the software, wait for offers from carriers (trucking companies), bring that rate (with added margin) to the customer, and negotiate back and forth until we all landed on an amount where everybody wins. That didn’t happen a lot.

So here I am now, two months later, and I know way more about trucks and flatbeds than I ever thought I would.

Even though I didn’t love what I was doing, I still gave it 110%.

It would not have been fair to the company, my manager, or our customers for me to come in and half-ass everything. Eventually I moved on from can-gets and started working on more projects where I was doing cost analyses to secure new business.

I’ve made friends in the office, had some good laughs, and even became an “expert” in a new software that is being implemented in all of the offices soon. I gained respect and built a reputation for myself.

As my time here is coming to a close, there have been a lot of questions about whether I would come back or not. I had to be honest with myself (and my manager): I technically could continue, but it wasn’t the right fit. I don’t feel like I’m reaching my best potential here and at the end of the day, that isn’t fair to myself. I can already tell it’s going to be harder than expected to say goodbye to everyone here, but I’m sure they would welcome me with open arms if I ever changed my mind and decided to come back.

Final point: even though I didn’t fall in love with transportation and logistics, I still don’t regret my time here. I learned a lot, got to experience a new field, and made an impact. So moral of the story is that even though an internship doesn’t sound like something you might like, try it! You might end up loving it or you might learn a whole new skill(s) that will be useful later down the road.