Being a student is a full time commitment, however, if you wish to succeed as a professional you have to be ready to roll up your sleeves and do some practical work as well. By no means is it easy to combine and schedule a job with university obligations, but hopefully some day it will be worthwhile.
This post will briefly reflect on my two most important, similar yet very apart, work experiences in the world of communications that I wish to share with you, so I hope you enjoy it. ☺
As I studied communication sciences for my undergraduate course, the teachers would always tell us that the best PR professionals surprisingly have a journalistic background. This is why I decided to find a job as a journalist on my final year of the course. Even though I enjoyed it, I confirmed my thoughts that journalism was not my calling so I was set to find a job, or at least an internship in a PR agency. I managed to harvest abundant knowledge from both fields and have learnt many useful and applicable rules of the PR-media world.
I gained:
Journalism skills
✔ writing articles
✔ editing texts
✔ interviewing
✔ everyday deadlines pressure
✔ creating in a noisy environment
✔ noticing bad/good quality content
✔ recognizing 'fake' and 'real' news
vs
PR skills
✔ team work
✔ regular press clipping
✔ original content creation
✔ time management
✔events protocol writing
✔ data analysis
As a journalist, I worked for Croatia's biggest newsroom company called the 24 Hours. For six months I was creating content beside some of the best journalists of my home town Zagreb and have gained a lot of work ethics from them as well.
Every day was challenging and every article different, but I talked to many different people, visited various venues and had access to explicit data which made my experience even more exciting. Ultimately, I had to stop working there as I was finishing my university degree and planning on coming to the USW to study Public Relations.
On the other side, during the summer of my final year as an undergrad I was called by one of my teachers who offered me, as the best student in her class, an internship in a PR agency Communications office Colic, Laco & partners, also in Zagreb.
It was a one month unpaid internship but I absolutely loved every day of it. I then realized why it was important for PR professionals to understand how journalism operates – the printing deadlines, their interests in stories and events and an overall good relationship. Even though the work in the agency was demanding and plentiful, I have discovered something about myself too – I operate very well under pressure.
Lastly I just want to add that I encourage all students to seek work opportunities as they will enrich their knowledge and experience as well as open other doors in the business world.
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