Why should you join?

As a public relations major you are involved in your on campus Public Relations Student Society of

America (PRSSA) chapter. PRSSA is a pre-professional organization and with membership comes with an unlimited amount of benefits and experiences. This past week, I worked with my friend Allie discussing the benefits of joining PRSSA and even had a testimonial from our president, Hannah.

For this project, Allie and I decided to focus on PRSSA because we believe more individuals across campus should be involved and want to get the benefits known to our campus. One of the main benefits is you are able to enhance your career by attending network events, such as national conference, national assembly and regional conference. Throughout our podcast we talked about the benefits of each of theses and Hannah talked for a bit about her experience at national conference last year.

When talking with Hannah, two questions we asked her was, would you recommend to attend at least one national conference and the other was, what are your suggestions for individuals that are worried about cost? Hannah answered these by explaining all the benefits you would receive by attending and how national conference isn't just about networking, but you're also there with friends and you have a fun time exploring a new city with them. Now looking at the financial question, Hannah's suggestion was to apply for scholarships throughout the year. Her other suggestions was if you know you're going to be attending, then start saving up over the summer when you're working.

Another way to get involved in PRSSA is to take a leadership role and be on the executive board. We talked with both Hannah, two time president and myself, firm director about our leadership roles and what our jobs actually entail.

With Hannah we talked about her time as president and things she found to be both a challenge and a reward. She talked about how her main challenge last year was getting individuals to do what needed to be done, and felt as if she was doing more than one persons job. The reward she gets from being president is seeing individuals in her chapter thrive, whether it be at a conference or an internship. Allie also talked with me about my role as assistant firm director and what I do. As assistant firm director I help our firm director with whatever is needed and help keep track of each project happening in our firm, True North PR. Currently I am working on Bateman and doing some outsourcing for an agency in Texas. Other individuals in firm are working on Up to Us and making the national debt aware to other students and KIND, a campaign focused on healthy eating and making the world a little better. As Hannah stated above, I enjoy when my classmates succeed with a client because this means we are doing something right.

Being involved in PRSSA for a little under a year, I never would have thought I would be this involved and be sitting on the executive board. PRSSA has truly made me a better leader and I would change my experiences or involvement in PRSSA for anything. The ONU PRSSA Chapter has many social media platforms, go check out our website or search ONU PRSSA on Facebook and Twitter to view our page. We have meeting every Thursday at 7 p.m. in PAC 132, if you want to learn more about this organization. Who know, you may make a new friend or two, I know I sure have. To learn more about the opportunities PRSSA can provide feel free to go and listen to my podcast, as this is a brief overview of the topics covered.