PRSA Foundation Scholarship and #PRSSANC
I was awarded a travel grant to participate in the Public Relations Student Society of America International Conference. It was such an amazing experience. I made new friends and participated in workshops that will benefit my career in public relations.
The first full day I went on a career tour at HubSpot, which is a developer and marketer of software products. Their offices were amazing! The environment was so much fun, people brought their dogs to work and played basketball on Fridays. They even have unlimited vacation time which I thought was interesting. I was grateful for the tour because it showed me what I could look forward to after graduating and it didn’t look like I would be spending much of my time behind a desk.
My favorite part of the conference was the great group of friends that I met. We all created a GroupMe and have been keeping up with one another since we left. It’s great to know that the relationships that I’ve developed while at the conference will only grow into much more, which is something that I’m really looking forward to. It will be interesting to see how we all grow in our careers.
During one of the workshops I had the pleasure of meeting Sharifa Murdock, the co-owner of Liberty Fairs, a men’s contemporary fashion trade event that is held twice a year in NYC and Las Vegas. The focus of the workshop was on the fashion PR industry. She shared her story of how she got to where she is and it was extremely motivating.
One really incredible aspect of the grant is that each recipient had the opportunity to sit before a group of successful diverse panelist. They shared insight on their careers and told us what we needed to do to be the best in our careers. After leaving the session we met our mentors.
My mentor has more than 20 years of experience in public relations. He helped give me some sort of direction. We spent nearly two hours together and I asked question after question. He was full of such knowledge and helped give me so interview pointers. I told him how I had an interview for an internship position when I returned home. I did my homework and used all the tips he gave me and got the job! I’m certainly going to use him as a resource throughout my career.
My school does not have a PRSSA Chapter so if it wasn’t for this grant I would not have been able to have this experience. I’m so thankful that I was awarded this opportunity and I can’t wait to see what the future holds for me.
