My Princetern­ship expe­ri­ence with Bliss PR was cer­tainly a mem­o­rable one. Not only did I learn a con­sid­er­able amount about the PR indus­try, but I also gained impor­tant insight regard­ing my own aca­d­e­mic path.

I started my day at 9 am at Bliss.  I was given a quick tour of the office where I became acquainted with the var­i­ous employ­ees.  Every­body was imme­di­ately wel­com­ing and friendly.  My first activ­ity was meet­ing with my intern­ship coor­di­na­tor, Glori Perez.  She started out by describ­ing her func­tion at the PR firm, which per­tains specif­i­cally to the finan­cial ser­vices arm of the com­pany.  PR turned out to be very dif­fer­ent than what I thought it was.  Although they are very sim­i­lar indus­tries, I def­i­nitely had my lines blurred between mar­ket­ing, adver­tis­ing, and pub­lic rela­tions.  PR as it related to finan­cial ser­vices com­pa­nies like one of Glori’s biggest clients, a large life insur­ance com­pany, was some­thing I entirely mis­un­der­stood before she helped clear up my con­fu­sion.  PR is not just about con­stantly mak­ing the com­pany look good and releas­ing pos­i­tive state­ments about their work.   I gath­ered that it was more about mak­ing your com­pany look like it is an expert in its field.  Glori took me through the dif­fer­ent steps nec­es­sary for the research she does for her clients.  Bliss employ­ees are con­stantly read­ing any bit of news they can find that per­tains to their clients. 

Once I had a bet­ter hold on the type of work they do at Bliss, I met with employ­ees from every divi­sion of the com­pany: Finan­cial ser­vices, health care, social media, pro­fes­sional ser­vices, and their jour­nal­ist con­sul­tant, Toddi Gut­ner.  Each rep­re­sen­ta­tive from his or her respec­tive depart­ment was enthu­si­as­tic and infor­ma­tive.  They filled me in on their day-to-day sched­ules as well as their per­sonal career choices that led them to work­ing in the PR indus­try.  The range and diver­sity of col­lege majors and pre­vi­ous employ­ers was extremely impres­sive.  Before this expe­ri­ence, I had the notion that col­lege majors lead peo­ple on tracks and limit the type of work that they can do.  The employ­ees at Bliss proved to me that I should major in what­ever I find most inter­est­ing, because I will likely end up doing some­thing that devi­ates from the plan.

I went in to this pro­gram think­ing that in order to be in busi­ness or law (two of my pos­si­ble career paths)  I would need a degree related to finance, eco­nom­ics, pol­i­tics, or some­thing that would give me expe­ri­ence directly related to these fields.  Now, I think I am going to pur­sue cre­ative writ­ing, because it’s some­thing I have always wanted to do.  I don’t know what sort of career I will end up hav­ing, but I only have four years in col­lege, so I think I will spend them study­ing what makes me the happiest.

As John Bliss told me, the most impor­tant skill you need for any job com­ing out of col­lege is know­ing how to write.  He seemed to believe that after this skill, any­thing is within reach.  I will for­ever be grate­ful for his kind­ness and gen­eros­ity towards myself for let­ting me come in to Bliss PR for a day.  I cer­tainly learned a great deal about PR and formed some new opin­ions about my own future career and how I will get there.  Over­all, I had a won­der­ful expe­ri­ence and I rec­om­mend it to everyone.