Reflection

I started out with a Spongebob spiral notebook and mystery stories about Cacktell Jones, a detective who had friends named Minterfall Winnifred and Tortina Mannerby.

Oh, how I have improved over the past decade and a half.

I’m so thankful I took the class MEJO 332: Public Relations Writing and had the opportunity to intern at Durham Exchange Club Industries Inc. These opportunities helped me grow in a style of writing I had not engaged with before but would definitely need for my future internships and career.

As someone who loves writing and hopes to incorporate PR writing into a career, I truly appreciate the knowledge and tools I received for multiple forms of PR writing. This class helped me learn my passion for speech and feature writing, in particular, though I enjoy all forms of writing. Learning that “snail mail” letters actually make a difference was helpful for me to learn as well since I would’ve guessed otherwise.

The client at DECI that my co-interns and I worked with also wanted to revamp DECI’s social media, which I excitedly jumped into doing. I run social media accounts for various organizations here on campus and I was thankful for the opportunity to hone in on that skill more and provide my current skills to an organization with an important mission.

The most valuable part of this service-learning course, however, was the knowledge and example formats of multiple forms of PR writing I can utilize when I find an internship. In addition, while brushing up on AP style for journalistic writing can be a challenge, I believe practicing the skill is crucial for success.

I also enjoyed a game we played in class called “Slang Exchange” in which my professor Marshele Carter would say what slang words were popular when she was younger and our class responded with the modern version of that word. Not only did this game make a lot of us laugh, it also showed us the importance of knowing the target audience and altering your word choice to best fit their understanding.

I can’t really think of anything that wasn’t helpful. I originally thought learning about direct mail letters wouldn’t be useful in this age of technology, but as discussed above, they actually make a big difference. In addition, creators of these letters can add many aspects that make the packages they come in more interesting, such as pieces that can be peeled off or money attached, even if only a dollar.

In addition, I learned about writing a statement of intent in the Undergraduate Executive Branch of Student Government, and learning more about that in this class would’ve been really interesting and helpful.

As far as moving forward, I made a PR Handbook for DECI to utilize for future PR writing, social media posts and graphic design. I also provided them with a speech, a feature pitch with an accompanying feature, a direct mail letter and a public service announcement. Lastly, I revamped their social media platforms — Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook — along with the other interns and our client. I created graphics and posts and tracked analytics to assure successful posts in the future.

A picture of my hours on DECI-related work is below. My client, Alicia Coleman, confirmed this hours, saying “I know you have done work on the project, confirmed” in an email.

I will miss working with DECI for sure and I wish them all the best.