As I am one step closer to completing my Bachelor of Communication and Digital Journalism, majoring in media studies, I am excited to enter the corporate world of public relations. I aspire to be a public relations professional who will open up pathways to developing brand relationships and making a positive change in the communities I serve.
During my TRU academic journey, the comprehensive coursework and hands-on experiences have nurtured me to build communication, problem-solving and leadership skills. The TRU learning outcomes of connection, engagement, exploration, and local-to-global helped shape my academic growth and prepared me effortlessly for a future communication career.
The TRU learning outcomes have significantly boosted my skills as follows:
Connection: Public relations is fundamentally based on maintaining good relationships with stakeholders and the public. During the TRU journey, I had plenty of opportunities to build meaningful connections with peers, faculty, and professionals in the communication field. It has encouraged me to develop oral, visual and written connectivity through working on group projects, teaming in classroom discussions and collaborating with professional communicators. Making new connections allowed me to learn the approach to future clients and stakeholders and build a positive relationship while developing interpersonal skills and verbal and written delivery.
Engagement: Public Relations is a field of study that requires understanding the social, economic, and political structures influencing the public and media. TRU’s communication coursework helped me identify corporate public relations crisis communication, strategic communications in media relations, and brand reputation management. Throughout my academic journey, TRU provided me with opportunities to gain hands-on experience by engaging local business owners in developing their PR campaigns to support their social and economic business goals.
Exploration: The TRU learning outcome of exploration is essential for the success of the public relations industry. Throughout the in-depth coursework, I had multiple opportunities to develop writing, editing, design, layout, basic photography, and desktop publishing skills to meet industry standards. The strong skills in writing, editing, critical analysis, and editing abilities that I have improved throughout this journey will be crucial for the PR profession in creating compelling, effective press releases and speeches and creating audience-engaging digital content in my future career in the PR industry. By combining strategic communication, design capacity, and media literacy, I will be sufficiently prepared to design successful PR campaigns, maintain brand reputations, and communicate with the audience within a constantly changing media environment and all the abilities gained under TRU’s Exploration learning outcome will provide me with the technical, analytical, and creative competency to succeed in public relations field.
Local-to-Global: The TRU learning outcome of Local-to-Global helped me engage with local voices and meaningfully navigate cultural diversity and perspective. Learning the Indigenous culture-related coursework such as Collective and Connective Indigenous Voices and First Nations Heritage and Laws enabled me to enhance my ability to understand intercultural awareness and principles, which will help me develop PR campaigns for various audiences, whether working with multinational corporations, NGOs, or government agencies in the future. This learning outcome provided me with the experience of adapting to different cultural contexts and communication styles and effectively practicing cross-cultural communication styles. It also allowed me to consider corporate social responsibility (CSR), which focuses on the local and global levels of professional work settings in the future.