Katie Boland

As a member of the CPRS Ottawa Board of Directors and a PR Student, I am continuously encouraging more student events and student involvement on the Ottawa chapter.

However, there is not a large amount of students getting value out of our local professional associations with two universities and one college . There are hundreds of students who are expecting to seek employment in the next few years but are not becoming apart of the few professional associations within our city.

I can see what CPRS has offered to me as a student, such as:

• Personal Contacts – I have become good friends with many of my fellow board members and chapter members that I have became friends with since joining. I know if I have work questions or industry questions I can go to them for help, which is really big benefit for junior PR professional.
• Informative PD Sessions: I know, I am in school most of the time, why do I need to go to another lecture, but PD sessions are cutting edge. As educational as my program as been it can take years to change school curriculum, where PD sessions are up-to-date reflections on whats going on now.
• Leadership Opportunities – I have volunteered both as a board member and leading event aspects such as the volunteers for the February Conference of 2008 and the marketing for the CPRS Ottawa PuRe Elements Awards.
• Networking Opportunities – events organized at least twice a year that allow me to stay connected with the personal contacts I have made.
• Future APR – once I have reached five year s in the industry I am hoping t o receive accreditation as a professional public relations practitioner.

I get value out of these opportunities, but what would you like to see out of a professional association as a student?

Students now owe the federal government a record $13 billion in loans, not including loans owed to provincial governments or personal and credit-card debt ,says the Canadian Federation of Students.

I try not to speak about my very rapidly growing student debt after six years of post-secondary education because there is not much I can do about it until I start work full-time. Even still, it is going to take me years to repay.

Right now my current debt:

OSAP – $25,000 ( i think, it could be more)

TD Student Line – $18,000

My debt isn’t as bad as many other students with the same education because of the summers I spent working midnights on the General Motors Truck Line and working up-to three jobs at time. But as I tell many people, I am different that most people. I am very Rory Gilmore. I was going to school and I wanted to be successful ever since I was little. Many of my friends from home didn’t attend post-secondary because of the lack of funds or waited many years before going back.

I don’t know how or what governments and schools can do to combat this overwhelming debt students are dealing with, but all I can say from a student perspective is that money has been a stress that has taken my attention away from my education way too many times.

Also, some of my colleagues were on A-channel discussing student debt this Wednesday, check out the broadcast here. If only I stayed a little bit longer.

Being a university graduate who is now in her final year at college, I get asked a lot why I decided to go to college after university. It could have been a combination of many things; like not wanting to work full time, or wanting to explore my future goals in greater detail, but primarily I wanted to be practically skilled in public relations.

It was during my last year at Carleton, my classmates and I were trying to get our fellow students more involved. Our teacher, Josh Greenberg brought some speakers into our class to talk about public relations and going to college after university. The speakers included Capital PR blogger and Thornley Fallis professional, Keelan Green and Algonquin’s College former program PR coordinator Peter Larock. Keelan scared me, and made me realize I have a lot more to learn and it was very unlikely for an employer to teach me these skills.

So, I went to college.

Going to university was not a waste, as some people assume since I wasn’t prepare to enter a job after school. A lot of my classmates got jobs after school, some upgraded like me, and some went on to Masters Degrees.

Some of the most important skills I learned at Carleton’s Mass Comm program that have not been replicated in my college environment include:

Media Analysis: I can conduct both qualitative and quantitative media analyses, a skill that has yet to be taught at college. Saving and scoring media content is a common task for entry level practitioners and is used as a tool to investigate how a brand or company is being perceived in the media. Throughout my program at Carleton I produced more than three media reports and this is a skill I value very much from my university education.

Communication Theory: Understanding how and why people use the media can be an important skill for public relations practitioners. Before implementing any strategy or presenting a plan to a client or a vice-president, it can better sell your idea if you include research or theory to back up your plans.

All and all university provided me with a solid foundation to enter into college and I believe it was a beneficial experience for me to enter into the public relations field. College touches on these skills, but it cannot go into as much detail as university does. I would recommend the program at Carleton to anyone starting out as a foundation to public relations and communications.

The Algonquin College Student Association launched a blog this week as another medium to reach out to their students.

You can check out the blog, here.

Last week, Algonquin PR students celebrated the start of the new school year with two networking events. Firstly, the 24th annual Welcome to the Program Party, where students were encouraged to put their best foot forward with professional clothing and crazy footwear.  Second-year students welcome the first-year students into the program. New energetic students coming into the program really helps you buckle up and focus on why you are really here. Their energy is amazing!

Secondly, many students joined together for the CPRS Season Opener at the Metropolitan. Catching up with many of the professionals in the Ottawa area was really informative and exciting!

Over the last week, I have been going classes, meeting new professors and getting pumped for the year. As much as I think I am completely ready to jump in and go to work, I think I can truly benefit from my last year of school. There is lots of traditions in the program I still have to experience including the Welcome to the Program Party, the Teddy Bear Raffle, the Halloween Party fundraiser, and the agency. Although, I am not going to be directly leading any or all of these traditions, I still think they are an important part of the experience.

Most of all I am really scared about handling my school work, my volunteer work, and my two jobs. I have done really well so far at managing it, I just hope I can keep it up. I have worked really hard over the last two years to make any silly mistakes.

So with that, Welcome Back fellow classmates, Here’s to another great year.

After a long and very rough two weeks of papers, evaluation, and exams, the Algonquin PR students are finished for another year. This year’s 20th annual spring fundraiser donated $24,000.01 to the Ryan’s Well Foundation thanks to the tenancy of the first-year PR students.

I can’t believe we did it. 

As a student you have big dreams and wild expectations on what you would like to achieve, and to know that we accomplished above and beyond what we set out to do is really amazing. It has been very rewarding year and much more then I expected when I enrolled in the program last spring. To know that I have experienced this much in a year is wild and I wonder how I ever handled it all.

Now the summer is here I am back at it. I started two jobs this Monday, first at the Student’s Association on campus as a director and secondly, full-time as a marketing assistant. This is summer is going to be just as busy, but I can’t wait.

Over a week ago, CPRS Ottawa-Gatineau held their conference “Take a leap from good to great.” Many Ottawa public relations practitioners took the time off work to learn from the experiences of their peers about the ongoing changes within their profession.  Having worked on the planning committee since November, it felt good to see all our hard work so well received. Everyone was very impressed by the speakers, the atmosphere, the volunteers, and the overall day.

Given the responsibility of volunteer coordinator excited me, but also scared me.  I knew I could handle it, but my work was still dependent on others. I was very happy that my volunteers pull through and were completely on point. I believe I have told them over and over, but they really made me proud.  I was very happy to see volunteers from all three academic institutions, Carleton University, University of Ottawa and Algonquin College.

Although I was running around a lot, I did get to enjoy some sessions. Many speakers were dealing with the devil that is social media and how they as PR practitioners handled it and what worked. But also, many speakers emphasized that other media should not be ignored, given that the average Canadian is not using these tools as much as TV, or the newspaper.  I think before investigating social media, you need to really understand if you target audience is using it, and what is the best way to reach them. Also, what are you trying to gain out of it.

Moreover, this conference helped me realized my potential. Getting told by senior level practitioners that I am awesome and driven, really meant a lot. It shows me that the messages I am trying to communicate to them are being received.

If you are a student wanting to get involved, try to discover what you would like to do in public relations, then try your best to show potential employers that you are capable of doing it. Never take no for an answer, just find another way to get where you want to be.

All and All, it was time well spent.

Being a student a lot of my time is spent volunteering and attending social functions on top of my education. I feel this is important to demonstrate the skills I am learning from my studies and to meet many of the welcoming industry professionals.

Sometimes this can be overwhelming on top of school and sometimes extremely rewarding. This week has been extremely rewarding. Not only did I see actual results from my efforts over the last year, but I was extremely proud and happy.

Firstly, Bob LeDrew announced I had won his Join the Conversation initiative and I received a copy of Joe Jaffe’s book. Not only is this neat because I love cultural studies books (especially those about social media). But it was a small recognition from an important Ottawa professional that my passion for this industry is being noticed. I also received some amazing publicity on Bob’s blog here.

Secondly, I received a call from the Algonquin College Student Association that I was chosen for a student director position on their executive board. yay! This will help me finance my education for next year, get me further involved in my school, and put me in a place where I can further demonstrate my leadership skills.

The time I have spent for the last year has been worth it.

Clearly if you work hard to build a portfolio for yourself outside of school eventually you will see positive results.

My advice, keep at it.

As announced on Bob LeDrew’s flacklife early this morning, I won a copy of Joe Jaffe’s book Join the Conversation from my comment about students and social media on Bob’s blog.

I am very excited about this. Not only do I visit Chapters monthly to look over the various public relations and cultural studies books, but I really enjoy reading them in my spare time. Over the recent months I have been looking for a book to explain more about this blog-o-sphere… but haven’t found much other then how to blog for business.

Ever since my Carleton University Mass Communication days have been trying to get students involved in various areas. I look as this as a challenge to continue to making blogging and social media a daily habit and to encourage my fellow students to as well. I am sure Rayanne can remember me nagging her to start a blog and to pursue public relations in our last year at Carleton.  I hope I can fulfill Bob’s objectives when creating this challenge in the first place. I give you all the power to nag me if I do not succeed in this. That being said, I will be trying my best to impress him!

In other news, I have been thinking about topics to write on this blog to make it more appealing that random rantings from a student.  I have decided to introduce small social media tools that I have come to use and rely on over the last year and hopefully some students will be able to read this and learn from it.

I am not considering myself a pro-star in any way.  But I think it is the little things you learn along the way that can help you get really far. You never know if you attend that event who you are going to meet and where that is going to take you. If I can get you to the event, that would make me happy to know that there is a greater possibility for you to reach your goal.