Planning Ahead

In Fall 2012, I heard about PRSA's Mentoring program and thought, "Why not?!" I was starting to think about applying for jobs (or sticking around for grad school) and knew that no one could help me more than someone in the field I wanted to end up in. After signing up and selecting that I would love to go in the direction of non-profits and/or event planning, I was given my peer mentor, Kevin Kane. After doing a little research on LinkedIn, I saw that Kevin was a Corporate Communications Special Projects Manager at Excellus BlueCross BlueShield. After looking even further and seeing all the experience Kevin had has in the PR field, I was excited to meet him.

During our first meeting, Kevin and I discussed his experience as well as mine. After telling him where I wanted to end up (back in Dallas, yee'haw), he told me that he could help me be as prepared as possible for when I start applying. We scheduled our next meeting and chatted frequently via email, since Kevin now knew what I was interested in.

The next time we met, Kevin didn't have much career search mentoring to do, as I had landed an awesome job at SapientNitro into Boston for when I graduate. As if Kevin couldn't be more thrilled to hear the great news, I also told him that I had recently been awarded Rochester PRSA's Charles S. Smith scholarship, allowing me to go to a PRSA/PRSSA conference. Now that my direction had changed a bit, Kevin would help me get my feet on the (PR) ground in Boston and find a great conference to go to.

Kevin and I are set to meet in January and I'm more than excited to catch up with him. I'm thrilled to know that I have someone in the real world looking out for me and helping me make the best out of my last months in school and first months in the real world!

written by Jenna Deutsch

"Untangle Your Life" Stress Buster Event

Well, finals week came around again last quarter and wouldn't you know ..... it was not pretty! But who (other than some naive freshmen) hasn't come to expect a packed Week 11 when your "social life" turns into "no life" and where you can literally feel the stress weighing down on your shoulders? Enter PRSSA. (To the rescue.)

We decided to host a fun stress buster event in partnership with Wiggio (Wiggio.com), a life saving online tool for helping students organize assignments, upcoming events & deadlines, and filter all communications into one channel for collaborating with fellow team members for group projects, clubs/organizations or work. We set up speakers, gave out FREE pizza, provided sidewalk chalk, bubbles, face painting and of course held an epic Twister tournament. Many local restaurants and companies helped us out by donating amazing prizes for our event, like gift cards from Lovin' Cup, Joe's Crab Shack and Pickle Nicks, as well as a set of their famous barbecue sauces from Buffalo Wild Wings.

We had a full afternoon of fun right in front of the idyllic tiger statue and even got one woman to spin who remembers growing up with Twister long before TVs were around! (She took no mercy on the students -- competition was fierce).

If you missed out at the end of Fall Quarter between your finals, fear not! PRSSA will be back again this Winter Quarter to save the week. Watch out for exciting upcoming events and activities!

Travel Contiki Vacations! No better way to plan a trip for 18-35 year olds.

It's 80 degrees in Rochester with a forecast of 56 tomorrow. Is this enough

motivation to start thinking about summer? With graduation only weeks away I

myself started thinking about my post-RIT plans. I never had the opportunity to study

abroad, something that was always a dream of mine. The timing was never right and

I didn’t want to risk postponing graduating on time. I was talking with my friend about

backpacking through Europe and I eventually started to do research and begin planning

my trip. After several weeks I just found myself more confused, and the cost of this trip

increasing exponentially.

Then I was introduced to Contiki Travels. Not only do they plan everything for

you, but they also provide you with guided tours. They do all of the hard parts for you;

like planning the hotels, and what the best spots to go to and they offer over 200

itineraries in more than 40 different countries!

I then started comparing their plans with my own, and I was saving hundreds of

dollars by traveling with Contiki instead of booking on my own. Plus they know about all

of the local treasures that I wouldn’t normally discover on my own. Plus they offer you

the opportunity to meet people from other cultures, not just the ones that you are visiting;

but your fellow travelers that are from other countries.

I decided that I needed to tell my friends about Contiki and they want to go with

me, which is cool because when you travel with friends you all get extra discounts! The

more friends that you go with the better the deal! So how about you go check them out

at www.contiki.com or follow the conversation on Twitter #ContikiPRSSA

Welcome

Hello and welcome to RIT's chapter of PRSSA. We have revamped our blog and will be making it a place to communicate with PRSSA members (both locally and nationally) and a forum for writing about PR in general as well as trends and issues within PR. Please check back soon to see what we have going on!

-Lauren Hittinger
President, PRSSA at RIT