Goodbye Scitech

Last week I completed my work placement at Scitech.
I began my placement in February and have been there every Thursday and Friday since.
In the past week I have been finishing up my final report for PR393 and it has allowed me to reflect on my time with the organisation and what I have learnt.

Scitech conducts public relations in a very practical hands on way. I wrote countless drafts of media releases during my placement which helped me in honing my writing skills while promoting various events or Scitech services.

As Scitech is a not for profit organisation, funding and staffing are limited, which means the communications team that conducted all of the public relations work at Scitech had to be multi skilled.
Every day I would be doing something different. While people would have their specialities it seems in a small organisation it's crucial that anybody be able to complete a variety of different tasks in order to meet deadlines and keep stories that are going out timely.

I think it was beneficial for me to work in an organisation that conducts public relations in this way, rather than only specialising in one area. It allowed me to improve on a range of skills including media release writing, preparing for events, writing for social media, website management, communicating with stakeholders and planning promotions.

Now I feel well equipped to enter the workforce after graduation and ready to continue improving these skills, no matter where I end up working.

The Perfect Blend

So it’s now my very last week at PPR and as I sit and write this, all I can think about is where has the time gone?! In theory, a month sounds like a long time but in the fast paced world of PR, I’ve rapidly come to learn that it isn’t.

In my third week at PPR, I spent a lot of time on the road, delivering invitations for an event on behalf of a client. At the time I treated this as a bit of respite from all the work that I still have left to do but with only 2 days remaining to get it all done – I’m now working to a very tight deadline.

 At the end of the week I was also given the task of helping one of the account managers put together a credentials document for the firm. I was given this task based on my ability to write and to perform under a tight deadline, which was definitely the confidence boost I had been searching for. As you might recall from my previous blog entry, my second week at PPR was a tough one in terms of my confidence and belief in my ability to write but undertaking this task has given me a chance to resurrect myself. I got to work on the task immediately by compiling some relevant case studies, which will all be included in the publication and wrote a succinct synopsis of each one. Part of this task will also involve me proofreading the account manager’s work to ensure that there are no spelling mistakes or other grammatical errors. Though I have never edited anyone’s work in a professional capacity, I have nonetheless chosen to embrace this task as yet another opportunity for me to learn and acquire those much-needed editing skills, pertinent to a successful career in PR.

Another aspect that I really love about this task is that to me, it is the perfect blend of both sides of my degree, as not only am I writing for a professional publication, but I am also helping this PR firm carry out its own PR. This fusion of public relations and professional writing has definitely demonstrated how well the two degrees go together and how skills from each are sometimes necessary for performing tasks in this industry.

I am looking forward to this final week and I can’t wait to reflect on what has definitely been an exciting, frightening, educational and enlightening month at PPR.