Amy Paul's Visit

Yesterday our tactics 2 class was fortunate enough to have guest speaker, and former UW-Whitewater student Amy Paul come and speak to us. Amy graduated this past spring with a Communications major, Public Relations emphasis, and a minor in music. Her current job is a public relations assistant for the Milwaukee County executive’s office. Some of her responsibilities include social media management, press releases/media advisories, monitor media coverage, website management, plan major events, and responds to media calls. A big project that she just finished up with was the September 11^th tribute downtown called Milwaukee County remembers 9/11. She was in charge of planning who was going to be speaking, making the event pamphlets and thinking of a logo for the event. Amy mentioned that she was assigned this task a little over a month before it actually took place and I think she did an amazing job being able to think on her toes and getting the whole event to take place. How she got to where she is today is from her internships, involvement on campus, and networking. The internships she had while she was in school were with the Admirals, Qdoba, the UWW University development office, and Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin. She also mentioned that all of these internships were unpaid, however, they all provided her with more experience than any paid internship could have given her. I appreciated this piece of advice because I never really looked at unpaid internships because I needed something that was going to compensate me for my work; however, any experience is going to make the potential candidate stand out more than someone with no experience. On campus , Amy was very involved with PRSSA by writing their insight editor, she was the professional development chair, being regional activity coordinator, and attending the national PRSSA conference in Washington, D.C. Some of her recommendations were to make the most of our college experience, don’t be afraid to ask questions at internships, network, get involved, don’t give up, and have fun. The recommendation that I liked the most was her advice she gave me on writing a cover letter. She recommended that I make it more personal and like a story rather than just telling them this is who I am and this is why I want the internship. She offered out her social media information including twitter: @AP2005, Webs: http://www.amypaul.webs.com/, LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/amypaul04, and Facebook: Amy Paul.