by Caroline Vaught

The coronavirus made 2020 a rough year for advancement. I know we’re all tired of hearing about it at this point, but I think it’s easy to forget how much this really affected students that are still in college. You hear a lot about what graduates had to do, but I lost a really big internship last summer that would have done a lot for my future in book publishing all because of the pandemic.

It’s easy to focus on the negative, but sometimes you have to take what is available to you and use it to the best of your ability. On a whim, my roommate decided to join Fiverr.com to try and get a few extra dollars here and there. In reality, it wouldn’t hurt anything, so I signed up too. Starting a freelance business can be disappointing. After all, you start with no reviews, no credibility, and no idea what to do first. All it takes is one buyer to have faith in you to get things rolling. Will it be exactly what you want? No, my first client was for a dating book that was priced over $50 for a small paperback. Taking the skills from my classes, I managed to pull together a small list of 30 people that I thought would be interested in advertising or reviewing her book. I composed emails and send messages to every single person. Then, silence. It took days to get two responses and only one of them panned out. It was humiliating and I felt like I looked like I didn’t know what I was doing. That was my first 5-star rating and the start of a freelancing career I couldn’t even begin to wrap my head around.

Soon, I was getting several clients a week. Each client was different, making me think differently for each book genre and finding the perfect audience. We learn in class that the media can be particularly hard to work with, but I have found that to be somewhat false. Not once has someone in the media told me to leave them alone, but I have had several clients ask I’m actually trying to help them. The main thing people do not understand about PR is that it requires patience, connections and faith. Clients would ask for me to get them connected to Netflix, celebrities and large groups of people that I had no chance of reaching out to.

After a while, you reach a rhythm. Remind your clients that you are a freelancer and not a giant PR firm, so you won’t have the kind of connections they might be hoping for. I tell all my clients that I can’t guarantee any results. No one wants to hear that, but PR is subjective, especially when it comes to products like books. As self-published authors, they don’t have the name of a big publishing company behind them, they don’t have a marketing department, I’m a college student and I’m doing my best. People that failed to understand wouldn’t even consider my services anymore, but all of my clients were grateful that I at least tried. I put forth effort for something they couldn’t do for themselves and no one else was willing to.

What started as a whim has morphed into a part-time job with a steady income. Teachers always tell their students to try freelancing, but how many of us scoff or simply think it won’t work? It’s possible to do these things, to build a portfolio from your home and to do some trial and error before breaking into the industry. I get a new order from a new client and a 5-star rating almost every day. It didn’t happen overnight. With some determination, some faith and planning, the potential for freelancing is right at our fingertips. It is up to us if we decide to reach out or let it fly away.

by Lucy Walsh
Personally, professionally and academically, I think we’re all feeling the weight of uncertainty that’s present on our campuses, in our workplaces and even in our country. However, many experts and psychologists have increasingly noted that resilience is one of the most emotionally and socially beneficial traits we can learn to adapt throughout our lifetimes. However, I’m going to make an argument for an intermediate step: open mindedness.

This trait struck me as an overwhelming theme I’ve noticed woven into the advice I’ve seen within professional development programming since the beginning of the pandemic. Recently I watched a program sponsored by Belmont’s Office of Career and Professional Development highlighting the job search process specifically within the arts, communications and technology fields. While the traditional cover letter questions and nitpicky networking preferences arose and were helpful, I found more solace in these identifiers of an open mind that so many of us are typing to adopt these days. The happy medium between pragmatic scrutiny and wholehearted positivity, achieving open mindedness seems like the most achievable step students can take towards building that hard earned resilience needed during the 2020-2021 academic year or pandemic-era job search. Here are my favorite tips on how to foster this trait in your work life, whatever that may mean to you at this moment.

1. Take a real, honest look around, and you might be surprised with what you see. In the program I watched, each individual specifically advised that it’s sometimes best to “be open to discovering a path that you didn’t expect”. Sometimes it’s easy to get tunnel vision and to hone in on a singular grad school or internship you’re aiming for, but this could cost you opportunities that might be available to you if you intentionally audited your options. It’s great to have a dream, but don’t get in your own way.
2. Try to put your talents into a different context. While so many of us have poured hours of work and years of identity into the major listed on our transcripts and printed on our diplomas, it’s not the end all be all, and that’s a good thing! While you may feel tempted to skip past any job listing that doesn’t explicitly say “public relations” in giant bolded letters, take a beat to read between the lines. Could your research have prepared your analytical skills? Has your social media experience given you an eye for both editorial writing and visual design? Ask yourself a few of these questions, and you might just expand your potential reach.
3. Be specific and intentional in your smaller actions. It’s great to use your upperclassmen years building relationships with your classmates and local PR practitioners, and a pandemic hasn’t made that impossible. However, it can be helpful to be specific when you are approaching them in a professional context. Do you want 15 minutes to ask about how they’ve learned to work creatively within the confines of a corporate job? Are you asking for a reference for an internship next semester? While it’s always ideal to have a broader scope of an interpersonal relationship before making a request, don’t limit yourself by thinking that it’s not okay to be straightforward if the situation allows.
4. Work on appreciating the bigger picture. This might be the most pivotal step in creating an open mind and building resilience, but it’s the most worthwhile. You’re never going to be worse off for taking this time to reflect on what you enjoy, what your values are or how you want to live. While things can seem rocky or uncertain now, it’s also important to remember that no one else is standing on some sort of solid ground. People fresh out of school and people decades into their careers have never lived through a pandemic before, so don’t fear introspection or block your blessings.

While mustering up the courage and confidence to approach the world with an open mind can be frustratingly elusive at times, we’re all better off taking these baby steps towards expanding our mindset to incorporate this point of view. Take a deep breath, and take it day by day!

Lucy Walsh is a senior public relations and publishing student from Evansville, Indiana. Alongside her duties as the editor of the PR at Belmont blog, she is an active executive board member of Belmont PRSSA and Belmont Ambassadors. She can typically be found listening to the full discography of Taylor Swift, walking Belmont Blvd. or writing snail mail to her friends and family. 

by Emily Martin

There is a common misconception that networking and marketing yourself is “taboo” or a bad thing, but in actuality it is one of the best things you can do to achieve your dream career! Knowing how to make genuine connections, talk about yourself positively and create a personal brand is a tool every professional should have in their tool belt. Before you even begin the journey into the professional world, you need to make sure your personal brand is formulated.

To create a personal brand you will use in networking, start by asking yourself a few questions. What three words would you use to describe yourself? What three words do others use when they describe you? For example, you could decide that your words are “creative, hard-working, and open-minded.” These words will serve as a guideline to how you behave, market and talk about yourself. The next step is to create a mission statement and an elevator pitch. Your mission statement is going to be a short one to two sentence summary of what you stand for and hope to achieve. For example, my mission statement might be “As a future PR professional, I hope to plan and execute events that are creative, fun and client-focused. My love for hands-on work and face-to-face interaction make me the perfect candidate for event planning in the modern age.” The elevator pitch is going to be a one-minute long version of your mission statement, and feel free to include WHY the person should listen to you and remember you. Use your personal brand to create a social media/online presence. This gives people a place to find you after meeting with you to see your work and to learn more information about you.

Networking cannot happen until your personal brand is solidified and ready to be presented to others. Once you are solid in your personal brand, the rest of networking comes from being confident, listening more than you talk, staying in touch with professional contacts and mentors and being memorable. Test your elevator speech on friends and family, and then make sure to get input on your personal brand as well. This will help ensure that it is as memorable and captures you as best as possible. Networking can start with a simple email to a professional in your desired career, to getting coffee and then staying in touch. Don’t approach the first meeting with the intention of asking for a job, but instead with the intention of creating a solid relationship with that professional. Maybe they won’t hire you today, but they might suggest you to a fellow professional or recommend you for a position later. Use this time as a college student to create those connections, as there are very few professionals who aren’t willing to help out a student. The most important thing with networking is, of course, the thank you card. Have it written and ready to mail right after your meeting. This not only comes across as more professional, but it will help them remember you, which is the whole point of networking. You have to network to make the dream work!

Emily Martin is a senior public relations major and PR Capstone student at Belmont University

by Molly Barresi

As the world moves online, students across the world have had to adjust to learning from home, and for many, it’s not an easy adjustment to make. All our lives, we’ve learned in a classroom with our peers by our side and our teacher in front of us, but this year is so different. We learn alone through a screen. It’s harder to focus. It’s harder to stay motivated. It’s harder get good work done. But here are five tips for how to stay on top of online school (and how to kick its butt while doing it!)

1. Have a designated place to work: This should not be your bed. Find a place that works best for you to focus. This may be your kitchen table, a desk, a countertop, even the floor of a specific room. Make sure it is comfortable enough for you to sit while in class or doing work and it has enough room for you to keep what you need close by (notebooks, textbooks, pens, etc.). If you have a consistent place to sit, focus and learn, it will help you feel a little more productive.
2. Set a schedule: Similar to your class schedule, make a study schedule and stick to it. One thing students feel they struggle with during online school is the lack of structure. Setting a schedule to study like you would you set a class schedule will make it feel easier to sit and get work done if you have designated time to do it.
3. Set rewards: Think of something you enjoy doing. Plan to do it after you get an assignment done. But you can only do that activity after your work is complete. It will help provide motivation to get things done.
4. Find a change of scenery: I know I said make a designated place to go your work, but there is nothing wrong with going out to get your work done. Where were your favorite spots to work on campus? Go there! Not at school? Find a safe place near your home to get work done, like a coffeeshop or the local library.
5. Make time for yourself: Burnout is real, especially since many schools eliminated breaks to shorten the semester. Make sure you make time for downtime and things you enjoy. Share a meal with friends, take a nap, or go for a drive. Do what makes you feel relaxed!

Molly Barresi is a senior public relations major from Cincinnati, OH. She is part of Belmont University’s Public Relations Bateman Team for 2020-2021, the Boulevard Team and Belmont PRSSA. While she enjoys writing, she is passionate about crafting and conducting meaningful social science research. When she isn’t getting too excited about a research project, she can be probably be found at McDougal’s Chicken on 21st Avenue.

By Emma Schneider

It’s safe to say that no one could have predicted what the world has experienced over the past eight months. A shift from our normal routines of going to work, attending events and seeing our friends and family in-person to suddenly not being able to do so was a hard adjustment to make. Only halfway through the Spring 2020 semester, students scattered across the country were forced to finish the remainder of their classes from home. People not familiar with video technologies such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams or collaboration tools like Slack, were forced to educate themselves in order to effectively and successfully do their jobs. 

Having had only one internship under my belt, I went into the summer with excitement and anticipation for the opportunities that awaited me in the fall semester. After much searching, the outlook for internships in my chosen field looked bleak. I knew that many companies would not be able to dole out an extensive internship due to the circumstances, and that if any did, it would most likely be remote. Finally, I was fortunate enough to come across and land a remote position as a publicity/marketing intern for Publisher Spotlight, a children’s book marketing firm based in Smyrna, Tennessee. Beginning the internship 450 miles away in Missouri seemed to be a daunting challenge, but quickly I learned that communicating and collaborating with my team via virtual channels was easier and more effective than ever. 

I was introduced to a plethora of digital platforms that I had never heard of before. Time management tools like Toggl allowed me to track the time spent on specific projects throughout the work day, keeping me focused when my mind could have drifted due to the excessive distractions of being at home. My company utilizes Trello, a collaboration tool that organizes projects into manageable boards that tell you what’s being worked on, who’s working on what and where something is in the process. While I am not physically able to work in the office, digital technology has fostered a communicative and collaborative experience like no other. 

Elizabeth Sutphin, a current PR Writing I student, also understands the challenges associated with interning in this “new normal.” 

As an intern with the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board, Sutphin has been tasked with redesigning and revamping an out-of-date website and social media accounts. “It’s been so interesting because everything and everyone is online right now, so I feel like people are competing for attention on the interweb,” Sutphin said. 

Learning and teaching over Zoom is often a give and take, and learning how to communicate over digital channels requires time. For Sutphin, finding new ways to establish personal connections with the publics for the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board was vital. “Usually we would have events with collegiate ministries across the state, but because those have been canceled, we’ve had to find new ways to connect with students and get them to hear the same resources they would be hearing if they were at an in-person conference,” Sutphin said. “We’ve been taking a step back by doing video interviews and setting up a YouTube channel featuring different series with campus ministers to try to get students from collegiate ministries connected with others.” 

Many adaptations have been made to our working lives and one unifying aspect holds true–we are not in it alone. “While we’re all online, there is such a unique opportunity for people to connect with others they wouldn’t have gotten the chance to had it just been a normal semester,” Sutphin said. “There are so many more resources at your fingertips.”

Emma Schneider is a senior publishing and design communications student from Springfield, Missouri currently enrolled both Principles of Public Relations and PR Writing I. With a passion for creativity and a knack for writing, she aspires to have a marketing career in the book publishing industry. She can typically be found fulfilling her sweet tooth, listening to Shania Twain or watching “Friends” for the hundredth time.  

The associated image features Social Media and Public Relations students prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

By Evan Dorian

I’m Evan Dorian, a Belmont student who’s taking a gap year during the 2020-2021 school year. There’s nothing that hasn’t already been said about how “unprecedented” the events of this year have been, so I’ll save all of that and instead talk a little about the pros of taking a gap year during a pandemic.

I like to think that I’m relatively aware of the potential fallout of the coronavirus pandemic as it relates to my college experience, so when we were sent home from Belmont in March, I was pretty sure that would be the last time I’d be on campus for quite some time. And while many students were eagerly preparing to return to campus in the fall with everything “back to normal” I came to realize that that was an impossibility.

I truly respect the dedication of the thousands of Belmont students who returned to campus and have been playing their part in ensuring a safe experience for the others who did. But I instead elected to stay at home this semester, and almost assuredly the spring semester as well, for my own sake as well as the sake of my higher-risk parents.

While many students across the world have decided to stay home but enroll in a full slate of online classes, I couldn’t bring myself to give up a whole semester’s worth of my Belmont experience while I stay at home, or even to go to campus and subject myself to the risks associated with doing so. I valued the experiences of my first year at Belmont too much to miss out on the many aspects of the college experience that are not socially distant and are better without masks and risk of infection.

I’m privileged enough to be able to essentially put the rest of my Belmont experience on hold. I don’t feel like I’m abandoning Belmont by any means, but rather saving the rest of my time there for when the time is right. In the meantime, I do have some idea of how to make the most of my year off. I won’t be hiking through Europe or sampling Southeast Asian cuisine, but I will be making connections and developing skills that can help me regain my footing in the educational and professional world when I return to it.

I started a blog called “Mind the Gap” to chronicle my gap year, but it took a little bit of a different shape than I expected it to, and I think I’ll be changing it even more in the future. I was skeptical that Belmont students would be returning to campus at all, so I was operating on the expectation that it could serve as a means of helping the student body feel unified over social media while they were apart. I think it did for a time, but now that students are actually on campus, I think the blog would be better served by content that’s relevant to just me – I’m okay with giving myself the spotlight sometimes!

What I hope to do with my gap year is what may very well fill the blog – and while I’ve got two online classes to worry about, I have an idea of what I want my next big personal project to be. Any public relations major will tell you that networking is key, and I personally love networking. While I miss the in-person aspect of networking, it’s easy (sometimes surprisingly so) to get a hold of people with whom you want to connect. As a sports fan interested in public relations, social media management and communication in general, a dream job of mine would be to work in PR and/or social media for a professional sports team. The return of the NBA season and a desire to network inspired me to put together a comprehensive list of as many people I could find in the PR and social media departments of the 30 NBA teams so I can “cold call” them over the course of the next few months.

I dipped my toe into networking earlier in the summer when a friend and I reached out to some sports journalists and broadcasters, but I feel more confident now than ever before that PR is where I’m most comfortable and successful, so I’d like to embark on a networking project that supports my goal of becoming a better PR student.

It’ll be a difficult experience waiting out the next year before I hope to return to Belmont in person, vaccinated against COVID-19, but I’m hopeful about what I can accomplish in the interim.

Evan Dorian Belmont student who, you guessed it, is taking a gap year right now. He’s completed his freshman year and is taking a handful of credit hours over the next two semesters to maintain enrollment. Evan is a proud PR major, and one of the directors of Tower Creative Communications, Belmont’s student-run firm. He’s a fan of basketball, jigsaw puzzles and basketball jigsaw puzzles.

By Noelle Peters

Welcome to Zoom Belmont University’s class of 2024! As this was not what anyone could have predicted the year to be, I would have never in a million years imagined to be starting my college freshman year off through a screen while I was still home in the midwest. However, I am glad to have started this crazy journey at Belmont University, even if it started with a worldwide pandemic outbreak.

They say what makes the school atmosphere lively and bright are the students, but I believe that all the staff justly deserve some of that appreciation as well! I have not even been a college student for even a month, yet I have never felt an enormous amount of belonging, than what I have experienced through Belmont. First, the dedication of all the staff deserves a round of applause. Whether it is the late nights or early mornings, the staff have spent an enormous amount of time planning every last detail to make each student still feel a sense of welcomeness, even if it is through a screen. Even though completing college from a Zoom account is not ideal for anyone, I have loved how professors have been creating breakout sessions to connect the class, so that we can learn more about each other while still being engaged with the lesson. For example, in my Public Relations Principles course, we have already been broken into several weekly breakout sessions to discuss the lesson and how it applies within an organization. With Belmont offering this course to freshmen, I am already able to be exposed and aware of what makes a strategic and dedicated public relations practitioner. I always leave this class in awe and amazement from all that I have learned in such a short amount of time! I have no doubt that with the help of all the PR professors at Belmont and the community of Nashville, I am able to learn how to become the best practitioner that I can.

One of my biggest worries with staying digital for the fall semester, was that I wouldn’t be able to meet new friends through a screen, but I was proven wrong! The Belmont students that I have met are from all around the country, and they all share an eagerness to get to know each other. This eagerness makes me even more excited to one day move on campus and meet all of them in person! This is one of the many numerous reasons why I chose to call Belmont University my home for the next four years. It continues to be a safe, loving, Christian atmosphere for all, and it’s filled with students and staff that are supportive and encouraging. By motivating each student to find who they are and why God placed them on this earth, Belmont has helped students feel a sense of belonging and purpose in this world. 

I could dwell on the negatives of not being able to experience the “normal” college start of a freshman student, but instead I continue to choose to think positive and think of all that Belmont has given me already. I have already been greeted with welcomed arms from my Towering Traditions group, created several strong friendships, have introduced myself to all my professors and all of that has been completed through a digital screen! My heart already feels a sense of joy as I look ahead at all the opportunities that Belmont offers their students and the guidance that is given to us by the outstanding staff members. Therefore, as I start this journey I am already reminded of the great future that is ahead for me. I may be 435 miles away, but Belmont University has made me feel even closer than that!

Noelle Peters is a freshman public relations major from Illinois. Beginning her freshmen curriculum online due to the COVID-19 pandemic, she will be a member of Belmont’s class of 2024. Noelle holds a great amount of love for her friends, family and faith, and she is both excited and optimistic about the opportunities Belmont University has to offer her.

By Olivia Blumb

If you find yourself in a similar situation as me, you may have found yourself working as a social media assistant, without much experience in social media. For the last five months, I have had to revive a company’s social media platforms. Though our main focus is Instagram, we have also had to plan for other platforms such as Facebook, since one of our largest target audience’s is known to use Facebook more. 

Throughout the last few months, I have learned what to do and what not to do on social media through trial and error. Trial and error taught me things that I couldn’t have learned in a textbook, I had to experience it for myself. The following points are things I would recommend to a social media newbie, like myself, who is managing someone else’s socials. 

1. Know which platforms your audience uses. It is key to know where your audience will find your content. If they are in a younger generation, Instagram is probably where you should post. If they are an older generation, I recommend using Facebook. That said, use multiple platforms to reach more people! When creating your content, plan for it to be used on multiple platforms, and choose a design that can be formatted to fit on each one. 
2. Plan your content ahead of time! Before, managing a company’s social media, I never really put in any thought about planning content weeks in advance. As I manage this social media account with two others, it is important for us to plan ahead. I write copy and create graphics so each post can be approved prior to when it needs to be posted. Since I work in collaboration with 2 others, we use a Google Sheets, where each block is a post and is color coded.
3. Be consistent. Being consistent doesn’t mean you have to post 24/7. To me, it means keep your messaging consistent in all of your posts. In my company, we are always trying to initiate bookings, so every post has call to action line that says, “DM us or visit our website to book now.” Even if your post doesn’t have a call to action, incorporate your brand’s message into the copy. 

All that said, I still learn new things each day while I manage this company’s social media. My main advice is to keep experimenting – try different tactics, learn from others, research. Each of these things will be helpful in learning how to effectively manage a social media platform. 

Olivia Blumb, a Green Bay, Wisconsin native, is a public relations major and corporate communications minor in Belmont University’s Class of 2022. Blumb is involved on campus in her sorority Alpha Sigma Tau and PRSSA. Blumb has been a PRSSA member since her freshman year and now serves as the Chapter President for the 2020-21 academic year. This post was originally published on her personal blog.