Hey everyone,
Hope you are all doing good though all the stress!
All my friends who have been doing PR 393 in the past and have been going through the internship have told me that their experiences were wonderful but all of them also mentioned the fact that real life is so much different from what is written in books and said in tutorials.
Eventually during my internship I could notice the BIG difference between what I learnt previously and what I had to do every day at work.Obviously,the newsletters,media releases and factsheets were same as I did in PR techniques.Yet the major difference is that books don’t tell you how to ‘bluff’,to make as if you were confident and knowledgeable in front of your clients.Books also don’t show how to handle crisis and eventually you are not a Public Relations practitioner soon after you finish your degree.Obviously we’ll need a lot of practice,experiences.I remember having to go to a meeting with one of our clients who hired Imagine Communication for their campaign.I had to go with the client together with my boss for a presentation in front of an engineer.I remember I was so scared,and the presentation dealt with audit,banking systems,eco-friendly building and i need to say that usually I don’t care about these subjects (my fault) but anyway the worst is that after 10mins my boss had to go to another meeting and I was alone with the client and the engineer and I was supposed to be the PR person over there.
Fortunately I could handle and everything ran smooth and no question was asked after the presentation.My point is that books don’t show you how to overcome those situation.You HAVE to be aware of everything and develop a kind of culture of every subjects surrounding us.Also public relations is not the same everywhere.The techniques in Australia for instance won’t necessarily apply to Mauritius because contexts are different,cultures differ .Books won’t show you ‘how to be creative’ or ‘how to be a good pr practitioner’.There are things that you will have to learn by yourself.And this is where PR393 becomes crucial for this is where you really see the difference between books and real life.
Loveleen J
