What I Didn’t Learn in College

There are some lessons even the most diligent of students can’t learn from the best of instructors. Only seven months ago, I was still a student. In June, I began my internship at Buchanan PR, where I have learned crucial skills to set the framework for career success. The following are the surprising but useful PR lessons that my experience at Buchanan PR has taught me:

● Timekeeping: This is something I was not even warned about prior to my first internship. I have to know precisely how much time I spend on each client every day and record that time?! It takes time to record time; isn’t that counterproductive?! It’s not if you want to remain a profitable agency, keeping track of where each account’s resources stand each month. I’ve learned to get organized and keep track of my time very quickly.

● Your smartphone, it’s a love-hate relationship: In college, your cellphone is typically used as a social tool. The fun and friendly aspects of your phone dissolve when you enter PR. Suddenly, your phone must be within an arm’s reach at all times. You get notifications every hour from your various social media accounts, yet none of them are for your own personal accounts. Your nights and weekends aren’t even safe from work emails and calls that must be responded to immediately.

● People are complicated: You do not typically get to choose your clients, and some may turn out to be more difficult than others. Group projects are often assigned in college, and while they are comparable to coworker relationships formed inside the workplace, they are not reflective of the relationships we form with the media and our clients. In the land of PR, throughout our careers (even my short one so far), we come across clients who sometimes pose outlandish requests. During these times, our job is to give our clients perspective and help them reach their organization’s end goals.

● Cision, Vocus, can I get a definition please? It is hard to imagine doing certain things such as creating media lists without tools like Cision and Vocus. Some students may have heard rumors of these programs, but rarely are they able to access them until they intern. These are essential tools I had to learn on the job. The same can be said for social media measurement tools such as Sysomos and Google Analytics.

While I learned many things in school, I also know that experience and failure are often the ultimate teachers in life. Especially in the constantly evolving field of public relations, the learning certainly does not end with graduation.