Dear College Professor: Stop Wasting Our Time and Give Your Students a Meaningful Assignment

Dear Professor:

I have a bone to pick with you. After I do that, I am going to hand you a feast-on-a-platter of an idea.

I think I speak for a vast portion of the public relations profession when I implore you: Please stop giving your students the silly task of locating a PR professional whom they can interview for your class.

Here’s why: First, we don’t have time. Most of us are going a hundred miles an hour, trying to keep pace in an unforgiving economy in which time has become the most coveted currency. But more important is this reason: Your students aren’t benefiting from this assignment. Or, at least not nearly as much as they might if the assignment were structured differently.

Case in point: here’s the latest email I received from a student – one of several I receive each month:

Hello, My name is XXX.  I attend XXX University in Pennsylvania. I was asked by my professor to interview a working professional in the field of my major study for a graded assignment. I am emailing to see if I can get in contact with the president of Buchanan PR, Anne Buchanan by email to ask her a few questions. I would gladly appreciate it, I check my email frequently through out [sic] the day so this is where you can contact me. Thank you very much hope to hear from you soon!

Followed by this:

Here are the following interview questions please provide as much detail as possible.  

1. At what age did you start your company?  

2. What kind of education do you need to be successful in this field?  

3. What is the day-to-day experience of someone in this field?

4. What is the best thing about your job?  The worst?

5. How did you get your first job?

6. What does a typical career path in this field look like? 

7. What are the financial prospects of someone in this field?

 

If you are paying attention, what you will immediately notice is that this assignment requires ME to do all of the work.

What, may I ask, does the student learn from this exercise? Aside from the fact that some PR people might be nice enough to do the bulk of her class assignment for her and, secondly, that public relations – like most professions – has its high points and low points.

Enough.

Professor, what this young lady has been asked to do will in no way prepare her for the real world of public relations. The foundation of public relations has, and always will be, relationships. A faceless email exchange like the one above is the academic equivalent of a one-night stand. Sure, you might get to check off a box, but how do you feel in the morning? Have you learned anything meaningful from the encounter?

So, how about an assignment that goes something like this:

• Using social media alone, build a relationship with a public relations professional and see how much you can learn about her job and the industry over the course of the semester. Students will be required to submit Facebook posts, LinkedIn exchanges and Twitter streams to demonstrate how well they have fulfilled the assignment.

If you hand this assignment out at the beginning of the semester, the enterprising students will have three months or more to actually build the relationship. They will learn that they need to listen and observe first, before attempting to engage. Students who wait until the last minute will be penalized, because social media – at least in the business world – punishes those who don’t play by the rules.

Remember when I said most of us don’t have time for these inane assignments? That’s true. But the corollary is that most PR folks are amazingly open-hearted and generous in wanting to help the next generation of practitioners.

A creative assignment that intercepts us in a place where we’re already spending a lot of time, and requires patience and thoughtfulness in building a relationship, is likely to get our attention.

For the sake of your students, ditch the silly email questions and teach them to build a real relationship.