All about Amy Paul

Last Tuesday, September 20th, Amy Paul came and spoke to our Public Relations Tactics II class on "Preparing now for your future - The real world is closer than you think." Amy is a 2011 graduate from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. It took her six years to complete college as she was not always sure of what she wanted to do. She was first a music major, and then decided to switch and she graduate with a BA in Public Relations and a minor in music.  Her last year of the university she was more of a non-traditional student in that she worked full time and took all of her classes online.  Having done this, she said helped made her transition from college to the "real" world easier.

Amy is currently in her first, full time job as a public relations assistant in the Milwaukee county executive office.  Some of her duties include keeping social media sites up to date and looking at Google hits, planning events and writing press releases. She said that she never would have imagined that she would be working in politics.  When she was interviewing for this position, the interviewer happened to know some who Amy had worked with at the Admirals and when the reference was called she got an amazing recommendation from.  Her dream has been and still is to work in public relations for sports.  In addition to her full time job, she still does some side work for the Admirals whom she did one of her many internships with.

Before getting her full time role, Amy had worked at four different internships. She worked at the Milwaukee Admirals, Quadoba Mexican Grill, UWW Development Office and the Children's Hospital of Wisconsin.  All of these internships provided Amy with value experience to help her obtain her first job.  Her internships gave her a diverse backing in that she worked for non-profit and for profit and worked in sports, food, charity and education.  All of her internships were unpaid and she feels that sometimes they are more valuable because it shows the employer that you really want to be there for the experience and not the money.  She even turned down one paid internship to be able to keep her sports internship because that was the career path that she wants to end up in. Even though they were internships, she said to treat them as if it is you real job.  Don't burn bridges when you leave because you never know who knows each  other.

While at UWW, Amy was very involved on campus especially with PRSSA. She served as secretary, editor and professional development chair for the organization.  She said that one of her regrets was not joining sooner.  Being an active member of PRSSA helped to develop her skills and network with other professionals by having to coordinate speakers, attending conferences and coordinating conferences.

Amy had a lot of advice to share with our class.  Her top 5 recommendations were:

• Internships: make the most of them, gain references, ask questions
• Networking: maintain connections
• Get involved: on campus and in the community
• Don't give up: it can be frustrating looking for internships/jobs
• Have fun!: don't forget to have fun between all

It was really great to have Amy come and speak to our class and I really appreciated it a lot. It was really nice to see someone's journey from college to career and to hear tips and how to be successful.  It was also nice to see some career options that one can go into with a PR degree.

If you would like more information on Amy or to contact her, below is her information.

Email: Amy.Paul@milwcnty.com
Twitter: @AP2005
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/amypaul04
Webs: http://amypaul.webs.com

The PR Student

Hello!

My name is Kristen Smith.  I am currently a fifth year senior at the University of Wisconsin Whitewater and will be graduating in May.  I am double majoring in human resource management and public relations. I am from a tiny town, technically I think we are a village, in south central Wisconsin. I grew up on my family's dairy farm where we have about 100 head of Holstein cows. I have two younger sisters and one younger brother; family is very important to me and we are pretty close.

Me showing my March calf, Brenda, and World Dairy Expo last fall in Madison.

It is hard to believe that graduate is less than a year away and I am still unsure exactly what I want to do with my life.  At first I was contemplating going directly to graduate school, but have now decided to get some work experience and go back to school in about 3-5 years.  Ideally, I would love to get a job in a large corporation working in the human resource department.  I am not sure yet what area of HR I would like to work in.  I got into HR because I wanted to do recruiting.  Currently I am doing an internship working in the learning and development department and I also like this area as well.  That is one thing that I really like about HR is that it is really diverse.  I decided to add PR as a another major to help market myself better in the tough job market and I feel that it complements my HR major very well as communication/public relations is  big part of HR whether it be employee relations or advertising a new job.  I also just recently did a five month study abroad in Arnhem, Netherlands. (see my blog: http://www.doubledutch2011.blogspot.com).  I would love to work for an international company in hopes of working in another country someday.  (If I move to another country I am going to apply to be on House Hunters International; I love that show!) I very excited to see where my future will take me.

Me with two friends from Austria, in Amsterdam this past spring.