Amy Paul, UW-Whitewater grad, describes her journey as a college student to post graduation life. Amy graduated from UW-Whitewater in May 2011 with a major in Public Relations and a minor in Music. Amy, like most college students was undecided with what she really thought was her true calling in the professional world but figured out after a few years of jobs and internships where she fit in, which was in the public relations profession.
Amy currently works as a Public Relations Assistant at the Milwaukee County Executive Office. She started working there July 2011 and already has taken on many tasks. Some of her duties include; social media management, press releases, monitor media coverage, and website management. Her first major assignment that she was completely in charge and had one month to plan was this year’s tenth anniversary of September 11, 2011 event. This event took place at the war memorial next to the lake in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Over 400 people attended this event honoring veterans from around the area. She also made the logo for the event that has received recognition from plenty of people and press. This event not only featured war veterans and current military but remembering September 11 with a very large piece of steel recovered from the wreckage. Amy was in charge of communicating with media outlets throughout this entire event as well. Due to all of her efforts, perfect organizational skills, and problem solving skills throughout the event she was responsible for Fox News 6 taping and You Tubing a piece from the event. Amy is clearly proving herself at her new job and is now working on a tree lighting ceremony set for December. Her success in her current job has come from all of her past jobs and internship experience.
I have found through classmates, teachers, and social networking that experience and internships are the key to getting a successful career when you’re done with school. Amy has a very long list of jobs and internships that accumulated through her college career. Her internships include: Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin, UW-Whitewater Development Office, Qdoba Mexican Grill, and the Milwaukee Admirals. She was a special events and fundraising intern for the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin. As a UW-Whitewater student she worked as a student assistant in the University Development Office. Her favorite and most memorable internship was with the Milwaukee Admirals as the communications intern. She grew up enjoying the sport of hockey and loves the sports field overall so she hopes to get a sports related job in the future. Amy’s senior year Qdoba opened up right off campus and were looking for people to spread the word of their new restaurant so she was hired as a brand ambassador. On top of having two internships a year that all overlapped each other at some point she had two regular jobs to cover school expenses since all of her internships were unpaid. Amy does believe that unpaid internships are the most rewarding since she wasn’t looking for a paycheck every two weeks but the experience she got out of it. Other on campus involvement included PRSSA secretary, insight editor, professional development chair, regional activity coordinator, and PRSSA 2010 National Conference. Amy knows and is an advocate for on campus involvement and or volunteer work and getting as many internships as possible.
Amy covered many helpful tips and gave a lot of good suggestions for beginning to post grad college students. Her four top recommendations are internships, networking such as Twitter, involvement, and never give up. As Amy talked about her internships she always referred to making the most of all of your experiences and never be scared to ask questions of those more experienced than you. I know that networking is a major part of getting a job in the future as Amy reviewed with us various times and how to maintain connections. Also, a major part of your college experience is to be involved and stay active on campus and or in the community to get your face and work ethic out to the public. Amy’s last piece of advice was to never give up, at times your job or internship can be frustrating but she found she learned a lot more working through the rough patches.
Overall, I really appreciated and enjoyed listening to Amy’s journey from student to a professional. I did have the opportunity to ask Amy a question about her past experiences. I asked Amy, “As an intern what was the biggest project or problem you had to deal with?” Amy responded, “My internship in Madison at the Children’s Hospital when I was fundraising for the Herma Heart Center from Milwaukee. My job was to make calls to sponsors to make donations to our cause and it was difficult to get the public involved to due the economic hardships.” It was interesting to know that her biggest hardship wasn’t necessarily public relations oriented but fundraising based. Amy had great feedback to all of our questions as well as was open to all of the questions we threw at her. I appreciate the time we spent with Amy and will continue to improve my communications skills and building my resume so I too can have a job within a month or two after I graduate.
