By Amber Carson
Traveling to Boston to network with other public relations students and professionals was an experience I will never forget. To be completely honest, I did not know much about PRSSA when I signed up for this trip to the national conference. All I knew was that I wanted to get involved, and I knew I wanted to do it right away.
A question I ask myself all of the time as a freshman is, “am I ready?” There is no real way of knowing, so I usually just go for it. My new motto is, “just say yes.” I cannot wait around for someone to tell me if I should take advantage of certain opportunities even if I am still young. This was the first jump I have taken and I could not be happier with my decision.
I did not know what to expect at the conference, but when I got there, it was exactly where I wanted to be. The basic structure of the event was lecture style discussions in large ballrooms at the Boston Park Plaza. Professionals held sessions in each of the spaces for a limited time and then new speakers would rotate into those rooms after the sessions ended. There were about five rotations on Saturday, which was our prime time at the conference.
Jon Iwata, Senior Vice President and Chief Brand Officer of IBM, was the first speaker we were introduced to. Iwata told the audience, “creating content to be consumed is one thing, creating content to be shared is another thing.” That stuck with me as well as many others I have noticed sharing the quote on Twitter. My next session was with the CEO of Burson-Marsteller, Mike Fernandez. He was passionate about diversity in his discussion, as well as helping entry-level students getting started. When asked for advice for students, Fernandez said, “questions are more important than answers.”
Having the opportunity to hear about professional's first-hand experiences in their careers was inspiring. To a first-year student, it is comforting to know that there is no right or wrong way to get where I want to be. My favorite speaker from the weekend was Rita Tateel. She is the founder and president of The Celebrity Source. She ultimately does PR for celebrities, and expressed several times during her session that, “time is their most valuable commodity.”
Another session I attended was called Tips from New Professionals. All of the panelists agreed on one main message and that was, “do something with your [PRSSA] membership.” Many people end up paying their membership dues, but they never attend meetings or get involved with their chapter. That will not help when they put it on their resume and cannot explain what they did for the org. One of the panelists, Chad Furst, was talking about his experience in being an entry-level employee. He told everyone, “the responsibility is great and it’s coming.” Furst does not want students worrying about pretending to be older or wiser than their senior executives. He wants people to enjoy the time they have now as beginners to make mistakes and learn from them because soon, our generation will inevitably take over and step up when the time comes.
Outside of the actual conference, I had an amazing time getting to know the other members of our chapter. Not only do I look up to them as leaders, but I look to them because I want to learn how to be a great leader. I would suggest getting involved as soon as possible to any freshman because not only was I learning from professionals, but I was also learning from my peers. Making these connections early on is only going to make me stronger as a student and a future pro.
I am very lucky to have such an amazing executive board in place for my first year in the organization. Overall, it was a pretty smooth operation. Being there with members of the board really made for a positive experience. This trip taught me more than I could learn in a classroom or a lecture hall. Because of this, I am more comfortable putting myself out there, and I cannot wait to thrive with my chapter.