1. Be prepared to never be able to describe your major to your family and friends.
A nursing student will become a nurse. An engineering student will become an engineer. That seems pretty straightforward. For public relations students, the job range can vary. It can be anywhere from “event coordinator” to “marketing director.” Do we deal with relations to the public? Yes, but it is so much more complex than that. A PR professional can specialize in anything from event planning to crisis communication. Those are two completely different skillsets that require the same degree.
2. You don’t have to give up your personal morals to be a PR professional.
Crisis communication and handling how the public perceives a company after a negative event is a portion of the field, but the profession deals with more than just that. The diversity ranges from community relations to fundraising and even government affairs. A PR professional can work for a nonprofit and help fundraise and plan events with the community and not deal with any possible ethical dilemmas. Working for a nonprofit, of course, means that there will be a large pay cut.
3. Public Relations is not just a “cop-out” way to get a degree.
PR relies heavily on research, planning, and strategy, and while it may not be as rigorous as a law degree or medical degree, it still requires a special skillset that not everyone has. Research is a major part of PR and that may seem off-putting and even boring to some. There’s more to PR than just saying “okay, let’s throw a party and hope people give us money.” Planning, goal setting, and plenty of research is necessary to succeed at anything in PR. At SIUE, the PR program requires an entire semester of planning a Public Relations campaign and another full semester executing and evaluating it. That makes this one of the most stressful and difficult senior capstone projects at SIUE.
Overall, being a PR student may seem stressful at some points, but the skills learned throughout the degree program are invaluable. Not only can these skills be applied to a future career in PR, but also in daily life through improved research, planning, and strategy making skills. Plus, the instructors are pretty cool too.
David Starke 