See that cute dog? Her name is Chloe and you can follow her on Instagram at @chloevieanderfliet. She likes to post pictures of herself looking fierce yet adorable.
Caring for this pampered pup is Brianna Vieira, a senior in BU’s College of Communication studying public relations. She’s a self-motivated, career-driven, powerhouse female who anyone looking to excel in the communications industry should admire.
But Brianna didn’t always study public relations. Instead, she entered BU in CFA studying theater. Throughout high school, Brianna was passionate about theater and thought acting was her calling. However, pursuing acting in school wasn’t for her. Her freshman year she took “Drama Literature” and the final exam was a two-minute manifesto about art and the students could do anything they wanted to convey their message about art.
As Brianna pondered this little anecdote she said, “And I was like what do you mean? The directions were that there were no directions which I thought was frustrating…And there was this rumor that every year someone gets naked during the exam, but I was like no—this won’t happen. But then two people got naked…”
So even though CFA didn’t work out, Brianna found her calling through COM. Now, as a second semester senior, Brianna is the President of Operations of BU PRLab, the nation’s oldest student-run PR agency. She is responsible for new business efforts, branding, social media and agency operations, (e.g. finance, bringing on interns and supervisors, etc.) and PRLab events. Right now, she passionately heads an agency-wide rebranding project, but that isn’t to say she doesn’t love the leadership aspect as well. As President of Operations, Brianna manages three directors and oversees approximately 100 students. She enjoys the responsibility and the learning environment because, to her, it’s a place where she can try out new ideas without fear of making mistakes. She also loves finding new business prospects with unique challenges and working with potential clients to understand if they would be a good fit for the agency.
If you don’t quite see how passionate Brianna is about her work yet, maybe these stats will help. As an undergrad, Brianna has held nine different internship positions and just this past fall received three job offers to work with major companies. Out of her offers, Brianna decided to continue working as Strategy Coordinator at Jack Morton Worldwide because she loves branding and Boston (obviously). Additionally, she’s a BU Scarlet Key award recipient and just spoke at the PR Advanced Conference this past weekend.
In spite of her busy life, Brianna’s quirks shine through. She’s obsessively clean and organized—basically Monica from Friends. She’s incredibly tidy and will dwell on things if they’re not in place. Once she ran home from class one day because she had some extra time and she needed to make her bed. It was “bothering” her. However, she’s the first to poke fun of her neurotic ways, anything to make people laugh.
She moonlights (but actually “daylights”) as Dora the Explorer at children’s birthday parties, loves rap and French pop music, files collections of digital “to-do” lists and enjoys pranks. Brianna’s also YouTube famous—she laments her Miley Cyrus parody video on YouTube (that got over 10,000 views one summer) is no longer accessible, although she’s trying to relocate it.
Follow her on Twitter and Instagram at @briannavieira if you want to get more of Brianna’s perspective on life. She’s absolutely obsessed with her social media and shares great career advice articles. Also if you’re interested in organization and professional advice, definitely check out her blog, “Little Boxes and Bows.” And if you haven’t followed Chloe, her dog, you definitely should because Brianna is her brand strategist (@chloevieanderfliet). And if you want to find her on campus for an autograph or advice, she’s likely to be in COM or in an Uber.