Key Insight 2

FINDING YOUR PASSION

“Follow what you are genuinely passionate about and let that guide you to your destination.” This quote by Diane Sawyer expresses the idea that figuring out what you are passionate about is the key to reaching a destination that brings both happiness and success. My second key insight focuses on my first upper division public relations course that truly embodied what a career in public relations would be like. Shortly after, I would use the skills I learned in this course in an internship that would solidify what I love to do everyday and hope to pursue following graduation.

As a public relations major in the journalism school at the University of South Carolina, you are required to take introductory courses before moving onto upper division. For this major, this means writing, research and building your communication skills. In the course Jour 437 Advanced Public Relations Writing, you do this by learning the transferable skills of writing press releases, feature stories, media releases, social media posts and many other communications tools used in a career in this field. While learning these technical skills was important, it was more important for me that I found something that I loved to do. I realized that I loved to do this when putting together my final portfolio. This portfolio finished at just over 30 pages and required research, writing, fact-finding and meticulous attention to detail. Throughout my first year in this major, I felt like it was something I could be good at, but also that it was something that I could not do as a career. However, in this course I was able to create that portfolio for a real-world client and actually enjoy what I was doing.

After the completion of this course, I knew I had the confidence to pursue an internship that required having knowledge of communication from both the classroom and hands-on experience and through Jour 437 course, I knew I had both. With that, I applied, interviewed and accepted a position as a scholars program intern in the corporate communications department at Colonial Life, a voluntary benefits insurance company. In this internship, I focused on internal employee communications by writing for and maintaining the editorial calendar for the employee intranet as well as maintain the content for an external company brand journalism site. In addition, I was the project ownervof a social media brand ambassador program that extends to over 340 Colonial Life sales agents. With this responsibility, I have been able to apply the leadership and goal setting principles I learned in MGMT 371, which connects back to my first insight. When I first took over the project, I had to set challenging, but realistic goals as the projects manager so that as I progressed in my efforts I could measure my achievements and adjust anything that wasn't working well. However, what I learned most in this position is that when you enjoy what you are doing, a day at work never actually feels like work.

Overall, going into my junior year of college, I was nervous that I hadn’t picked a major that I was truly passionate about or one that could lead me to happiness and success in my future career. However, once I realized that I loved writing, building relationships and working as a leader as mentioned in my first key insight, I felt confident in interviewing and selecting my first post-graduation job.