PRSSA’s mission is: to provide exceptional service to our members by enhancing their education, broadening their professional network and helping launch their careers after graduation.
The entire reason I joined PRSSA was to have another attractive point on my resume. I wasn’t expecting anything else from it; that is until last Tuesday, at our Chapter’s Friends-giving event.
Don’t get me wrong; PRSSA is a great tool and club to be a part of. I am so grateful for a place where I can go talk to fellow PR students. A place where I can learn from professionals and up my resume. But I learned something at friends-giving. Rachel Schramm, former PRSSA President told us that PRSSA is family. And being my critical self, I shook my head and rolled my eyes. It sounded cliche to me. But I stopped myself from completely shutting out everything she was saying; and ended up getting something out of it. Something quite important.
PRSSA should be a place where we feel like we are home. Connected. Comfortable. Vulnerable. We should be able to confront each other with the things we are questioning or the things that frustrate us. We should be able to talk open and honestly about things, especially things related to PR. Not only will we feel like we have a community and will we be better of in our current lives because of this; but it will help our future selves too.
How?
We live in a small world. The people we do homework with, go to PRSSA meetings with, cry over capstone class projects with; we may interact with these same people later on in our professional careers. These people may be able to help us later in life. We should really try to utilize the people and the relationships that we have in our lives now.
PRSSA might seem like another one of those clubs, with those pretentious, professional-minded students. I’d like to offer it as something else though. A community of people who are working towards similar goals, lending a hand to one another when a fellow student may be in need, a community where we can gain professional skills but also close friends who are going through the same program. PRSSA is more than what you the internet defines it to be; I encourage you to involve yourself and utilize the unseen things it could offer.
~ Christina Cusumano, Director of PR