PR Advanced Takeaways

BY: Charley Hart

PR Advanced Takeaways

On Saturday, February 24th, BU PRSSA hosted its  17th annual Northeast District conference: See Through Boundaries and Unlock Potential. The conference was a great experience for college students soon  to enter the world of PR. The day featured networking opportunities, engaging guest speakers, and concluded with a career fair. People from all over the Greater Boston area and students from colleges in multiple northeast states attended the conference.

As a student at Boston University’s College of Communication studying Public Relations, PR Advanced is a great opportunity that provides a learning and networking experience. Regardless of your major, it is worth attending the conference because you will learn something new and network with people from a variety of different backgrounds. I met students majoring not only in public relations, but also in business, communications, and journalism..

There was a wide variety of guest speakers and panels throughout the day, with excellent  options  to choose from. We started the day attending a talk from Ernie W. Knewitz, the VP of Communications and Public Affairs at Johnson and Johnson. He provided  advice on what students  need to be successful in a PR career.. Throughout the rest of the day, I attended a variety of different breakout sessions [or] panels. I attended the AI in communications panel, where Aaron Kwittken spoke about artificial intelligence in the public relations field. Next I went to the digital storytelling panel featuring three different panelists from different backgrounds who spoke on how we tell stories as communicators in the digital age. Lastly I went to the marketing communications panel that also featured speakers from different backgrounds of communications. Each of these left me with a greater understanding of the impact of what they mean in PR. I previously had not known very much about AI, but the AI panel showed me how beneficial and powerful it is for the communication industry. I also found the marketing communications panel to be useful as PR and marketing work together a lot of the time. Lastly, at the end of the day, there was a career fair with professionals representing a variety of PR agencies, schools with communications graduate programs, and a nonprofit organization. 

Overall I found the conference to be a memorable and greatly beneficial experience that allowed me to create a lot of new connections.

PRSSA Northeast District Conference – By the Numbers:

198 attendees and guests

23 speakers

14 sponsors and donors

10 career fair companies and graduate programs

8 PRSSA chapters represented from 5 states

2 other communications organizations represented 

2 PRSA chapters engaged 

2 nonprofit partners

1 news outlet onsite