By Nikki Vergakes, PR Specialist at Trevi Communications

Every February, Boston University PRSSA hosts all the regional PRSSA chapters at their school for an enriching day of learning and networking. It’s not surprising that only the most engaged students attend this conference, since it’s on a Saturday. This is just one of the many reasons why I attended the conference along with my Co-College Liaison, Ermolande Jean-Simon, seeking out talented seniors and grad students to join our chapter.

By the end of the day, we gained much more knowledge than just students to keep an eye on. Since we were allowed to hop around the sessions (thanks for the opportunity, BU PRSSA), we picked up almost as much information as the students.

During my days in PRSSA, my two favorite times of the year were regional and national conference. It was like Christmas came more than once a year! I also just graduated in May, so I can’t say that my mindset is very different from that of the students. Either way, you never stop learning. This conference would’ve been beneficial for professionals and students of any age.

The first breakout I attended was hosted by Michal Desalvo, VP of Healthcare at OIlgivy. He took us through his seemingly treacherous job search path. I think that everyone could relate to what he went through, however, even if you had a job secured after graduation.  His presentation was supposed to be a super-secret, life-changing tip to land a PR job. Not surprisingly, the secret was that there is none! His advice is the be true to yourself and what you want, work hard and to treat the whole process of networking like making friends. Look at how ridiculous it would be if we treated relationships like we do networking.

I also really enjoyed the keynote session by DJ Capobianco, Manager of Research at Twitter. I was happy to catch this after networking with students at the career fair. The left and right side of my brain were buzzing after his presentation. I missed the part where he explains what he did, but from what I gathered, brands approach Twitter for market research, and he gathers the research for them. If that doesn’t sound like a cool job, I don’t know what does. My two big takeaways were that there is actual revenue increase due to a pleasant customer service via Twitter (talk about an ROI), and the best quote of the day, “All research is wrong no matter who does it, it just depends how wrong it is.”

Thanks to BU PRSSA for having us – we already can’t wait for next year!

Bio

Nikki Vergakes is a PR Specialist at Trevi Communications, working in professional services and clean energy PR. Having just graduated in May, she’s learning so much about what you can do with PR in her role, and is also putting the skills she learned in (and out of) school to the test with some side projects. She just launched a podcast with her friend, writes in the free time, and just joined She Zine as a news & culture contributor in March.