Tamia Gregory
If you’re as chronically online as I am, chances are you’ve probably seen the “What are you gonna do with that [insert major here] degree?” trend on TikTok, Twitter, or Instagram. Her Campus jumped on the trend this week and inspiration struck instantly. The internet never ceases to amaze me with the random topics they make running jokes out of.
As a student majoring in Mass Communications with a concentration in Public Relations (and Advertising, but whatever), I often get asked this exact question: What do I want to do with that degree? Many people I talk to don’t know what Public Relations (PR) is, and honestly until a few months ago, neither did I. I had a very vague understanding but after taking major-specific classes and getting some hands-on experience through internships, I thought I’d share what I plan to do with my PR degree, other than rewriting the narrative and exaggerating, of course.
What is PR?
The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) defines public relations as “a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.” The list of responsibilities of a PR specialist is nearly infinite. Still, some of them include overseeing content creation to increase customer engagement, pitching talent to journalists for interviews, scheduling press days for clients, protecting a client’s reputation, crafting media releases, and so much more.
What to do with a PR degree
PR exists in a handful of spheres and any company that engages with the community should have a PR person or department, whether in-house or outsourced. Under the PR umbrella, we can find media relations, executive communications, corporate communications, speechwriting, internal communications, and brand journalism among others.
What I’m going to do with a PR degree
For me, media relations is where it’s at. Media relations requires the PR specialist to be like a middle-man between the media and their client. For my current internship, I work under a team of amazing marketers and publicists who work with TV shows and movie titles from clients like Netflix, Hulu, and Disney+.
Their goal is to publicize and market their client’s shows and movies by identifying a target audience and connecting with journalists to tell the brand’s story. Everyone on the team also works magic to brainstorm, develop, and execute events to highlight the title, the talent, and sometimes, the good deeds the studio is doing for the community.
Before interning on this team, I wasn’t exactly sure what career I wanted post-graduation, but after a semester of witnessing how everyone’s roles depend on one another by taking notes during meetings, seeing the work other seasoned interns were doing, and participating in brainstorming sessions, I was inspired to become a publicist and a freelance journalist.
Just like your favorite influencers receive PR packages in the mail or get invited to movie screenings, so do journalists. If they’re going to write about the product, TV show, movie, or service, they have to experience it first-hand. Being on both sides of the coin – a publicist and a journalist – opens so many avenues for me to gain experience and perfect my craft in an industry that requires a lot of writing.
I’m working towards building a writing portfolio with my Her Campus pieces and other digital publications and building my publicity portfolio through the work I do for my internship. My goal is to secure a job doing either or both of these things. I look forward to whatever the universe has in store.