Success in the City

New York City (n.) -- A place that thousands of public relations students and professionals dream to work in the hustle and bustle of the fast-paced public relations industry.

For many, it stays a dream, but for a few lucky ones, it becomes reality. Penn State College of Communications helps make it reality for hundreds of Communications students through its annual "Success in the City" career fair. On Friday, April 9, hundreds of students traveled to the Time Warner Center in New York City to make as many contacts as possible in five short hours.

The career fair was less than successful for most PR students looking for traditional or interactive social media. There was tons of contacts for potential future jobs, but the most relevant current jobs were in sales. Yeah, I know I have experience cold calling media, working with business professionals and networking on a daily basis, but sales is completely different.

None the less, NYC is always a great place to visit and the College of Communications created a great opportunity for most of its students. Who knows, a contact made yesterday, may actually follow through with a job in the near future. For the next two days, I will be sending more than 15 follow up e-mails to contacts I met at "Success in the City" in hopes of finding that perfect job.

Celebrating the 2010 Census

Yesterday, my colleagues and I set out to make the most of hte nice weather on campus by creating a "Census Party" at the very popular Allen Street gates. Not knowing what to expect, we piled up boxes of T-shirts and colorful hats that promoting participating in the census. The idea was to inform everyone who came on or off campus 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. about the importance of census participation. So, we did just that.

Around noon, foot traffic began to drastically increase and before we knew it, we had lines of people waiting to get free shirts and hats. But it wasn't just handing out free gifts. While students drooled over our ever so popular stuff, we made them pledge to fill out the census by initialing on a slip of paper. Eventually that slip of paper was linked with all of the other slips and before we knew it, we had more than 500 pledges to fill out the 2010 census form--all linked in a chain.

A sight for eyes? You bet it was.

A hunt for the perfect job

Juggling two internships, classes and extracurricular activities is not always easy, especially when the idea of finding a job is thrown into the mix. Since spring break, I have traveled to Pittsburgh twice and attended a career fair in search for that perfect post-graduation job. But it's much more than finding the "perfect" job, it's making the relationships and creating a network of contacts.

The last year, we have all heard about the bad economy and more recently, we've heard that it's getting better. Although people still have mixed reviews on the economy, there are many resources that can help soon-to-be graduates land their first job:

1. Participate in conversations on Twitter like @PRStudChat and @Helpaprproout, ask questions, meet professionals, make the contacts.

2. Take advantage of past internships. Past employers or current are always willing to help you out because they want to see you succeed.

3. Seek out professionals in the are of PR you are interested in and ask the right questions.

I know I'm just a college student in search for a job, but the things I have learned along the way have helped me tremendously. You can't be afraid to put yourself out there and you have to know how to sell yourself.