Updated March 26, 2014…The benefits of being based in the city that is home to Baylor University are student interns we train as well as speaking to students in the PR classes. Not being Baylor University graduates ourselves, we’ve become fans of Baylor athletics in recent years. We root for and follow the Lady Bears, Baylor Men (I’m listening to the NCAA Nebraska game as I write this), Heisman winner RGIII and the building of McLane Stadium. Baylor’s John F. Baugh Center for Entrepreneurship hires us for video production projects.
But what really makes Baylor great are its students. After we launched our agency in 2002, we quickly introduced ourselves to Baylor Communication Department professors. Since then, we have provided class credit and trained a steady stable of Baylor PR interns: Amanda Farmer, Wes Longacre, Kelsy Cole Westman, Amy Surplus, and Courtney Carter to name a few. Several students have interviewed Liz Anderson about life in PR, including the blog series, “A Student’s View of Real-World PR” by then-Baylor student Andrea Aguirre.
Our current Baylor intern, Erica Mitchell, is no exception. But she did not come to us through our normal Baylor channels. We met Erica at Camp Mystic where Liz’s daughter is a 3rd Term Camper (go Tonks). Liz gave Erica her business card after learning she was a marketing major at Baylor. Within a month or two, Liz heard from Erica. And before you know it, Erica came on board as our spring 2014 intern working about 10 hours a week. Rather than give you our perspective of Erica’s work, we want to share what she wrote about her first month at E.H. Anderson PR: Month 1 So far, since I have been at E.H. Anderson PR, I have gotten a lot of hands on experience and training that I had not previously learned in the classroom. One of the first things that I learned while here was ways to self create free publicity for clients. This entailed posting about different events to various sites that let you post free calendar listings.I have also received some SEO training since starting here. This included Google searching clients by key words to see where they come up on Google, as well as shadowing while website changes were made to try and raise where the clients come up in searches.
Speaking to Baylor’s Advanced PR twice a year is our chance to share PR war stories, tips on work-life balance, advice on getting a job and more. Another benefit to speaking each semester is connecting face to face with other professionals who are on the panels with us. Monica Feid from BizComm, Amanda Hill from Lewis Public Relations, Wendy Gragg from Chisholm Crossing, Innovation’s Randy Robertson, Mary Beth Tait from The Dwyer Group to name a few. Shout-out to Baylor University and Dr. Cassy Burleson for allowing us into your classroom, and for encouraging your students to earn class credit as interns with E.H. Anderson PR. We appreciate all you do, Dr. B. Interested intern applicants, or professors who desire more information about our intern program can email: [email protected].