Today I attended orientation at the S.I. Newhouse School for Public Communications. Despite being an uncomfortably hot summer day and being herded through buildings for photos and speeches (including an interesting talk by Sean Branagan on creating a start-up), it was a great day to start what I’ve heard is an incredible eleven month program.
I met the 33 other (predominantly female) PR students in my year. Highlighting just how intense and short the program is, our new program head Maria Russel spent much of the class discussing internships. After completing our final course and cumulative exam in May we’re finished on campus but must complete at least eight weeks of full-time work in a PR-related department in order to receive our degree. Eleven months from now my goal is to have a full-time job, as opposed to an internship which has become more and commonly the entry-point for recent graduates in the field.
Tomorrow my graduate education begins with four hours of PRL 604: PRL 604: Writing for News and Public Relations. We’re going discussing creating our mock media kit and then listening to Professor Reff’s lecture on
What is News? Soft vs. hard; News writing: structure of a news story; leads/conclusions, using quotes, writing from a speech/press conference/press release, writing for the web; Writing exercises; Present subject of individual media kits. Assignment for 7/9: Bring one question about news writing for guest speaker Professor Bob Lloyd.
Below is the schedule for the rest of the week for any prospective students. I’ll let you know how it goes.
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