Saying "I Do" to your career

I’ve been working on a project for my Advertising Strategies class about brides-to-be, building a consumer profile. Thus, weddings have been top of mind for me this quarter, and it got me thinking about marriage and how it applies to my life right now.

No, I’m not engaged. Not even close.


I’m talking about my chosen career path.

We’ve all heard people warn us not to be married to our careers, to have a life outside our work.
But I tend to disagree. In researching marriage and weddings for my project, interviewing several brides-to-be, reading countless wedding magazines and researching the history of weddings, I’ve come to realize that maybe being “married” to your career isn’t such a bad thing after all.

Think about it. The way you choose your career path is perhaps similar to the way you pursue any relationship. You want it to make you happy, give you a reason to wake up in the morning. You want it to challenge you, push you to be your best.

And of course, just like in a relationship or marriage, there will be times when it lets you down, when you wonder where you would be had you chosen to do something else. You’ll have rough days when nothing seems to be going right. You’ll make mistakes. But at the end of the day, you’ll remember why you chose your career in the first place, and remembering that will make the difficult times seem a little less gloomy.

So, to the love of my life, public relations, I guess it’s for better or worse!
Think my analogy is too extreme? Do you agree? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Photo courtesy of Google Images.

Hard work pays off

If there’s one thing I’ve learned after four years in college it’s this:

Hard work pays off.

As I approach my final months of being a college student, I’ve been looking back a lot lately at the past four years, evaluating my experience, identifying what went right and what went wrong. But one thing that remains constant throughout those experiences is that the harder I worked, the more I achieved, and the happier I was in the long run.

If you know me, you know I’m a big fan of goals, a la Rachel Berry from Glee. I am a strong believer of following your dreams, but an even bigger advocate of hard work.

I found a quote a few weeks ago that I really identify with:

"Some people dream of success, while others wake up and work hard at it." --Author unknown


We all have dreams, and we all want to believe we can achieve anything we set our mind to do. But the reality is, that’s not enough—it takes a lot of time, a ton of effort, and probably a few sacrifices along the way.

One of the best decisions in my college career was joining the student PR firm, ImPRessions. Never in my life have I met so many hard-working and dedicated people in one group. I was reminded of how lucky I am to be a part of it today, when we announced that our firm has been honored with national affiliation status through PRSSA National.

In the past few months I’ve found it harder and harder to motivate myself as senioritis and anxiety of life after graduation have taken their toll, but then I remember to take a step back and remember that slacking off isn’t going to get me anywhere.

If I could offer any advice to younger students or my peers in general, it’s find something you want in life and work harder than you could have ever imagined to get there.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this…do you agree? Disagree? What advice do you have?

A new view: agency PR

I’ve officially completed my first two weeks at Maple Creative, a Charleston, W.Va. based public relations firm. This is my first foray into agency PR after having worked the past two summers in corporate PR, and I’ve already seen in my very limited experience how different the two are. Here are some of my key observations of these differences:

1. Billing your time. At most agencies, you have to track the time you work for each client on a daily basis. For me, this has been the hardest thing to get used to. It does help me remember what I’ve accomplished each day, which is a definite plus in such a fast-paced environment. Which brings me to my next point:
   
   
2. Fast-paced environment. In any PR job this is likely to be the case, but in my opinion the agency world steps it up a few levels. Non-stop phone calls, e-mails, meetings and trying to fit in everything else in between is no easy feat. I finally gave in and invested in a BlackBerry, which has been a lifesaver in helping me keep up.
   
   
3. Time management. When managing several clients instead of one, there is a lot more juggling involved. I’m still trying to figure out the best way to stay organized, and so far that has been keeping an ongoing to-do list and making sure I write down everything I possibly can.
   
   

Regardless of the differences I’m thrilled to have this opportunity and I’m loving everything I’m doing so far. Good luck trying to catch me this winter break, ‘cause I’m going nonstop!