mattlawyue
Currently in Tanzania, Africa doing media relations for the School of St Jude in Arusha.
Spent some time in public relations in NYC, and have written for SLAM Magazine, ESPN NewYork, the Boston Herald and BusinessWeek.
The College of New Jersey, '10.
I don’t write anymore.
Consciously I’ve known this for some time, having months ago decided to bury this disgrace behind sandbags of excuse, until, like the mighty Mississippi gushing downstream at breakneck pace, the guilt seeps over and through every porous opening of the blockade without mercy.
I hid behind many excuses: pace of my public relations job; a social life dragging me in this and that direction from myriad groups of friends and family; eating/gyming/traveling/reading; but perhaps most significantly, my innate inability to sit down for more than a couple of hours and just write. I’d start and stop with more frequency than rush hour traffic on the West Side Highway. Honestly, my Dashboard is littered with half sentences and single paragraphs of unfulfilled nothing.
Back in college I’d write almost every day, excluding homework or papers for class. Whether it was for my school newspaper, SLAM, or my blog, I’d write anything. And I miss that. It’s a part of my life that’s taken a back seat ever since I started working full-time.
Just because I’m not a journalist, right now, doesn’t mean I stop writing. Time to hammer that home, and get back on this grind.
To avoid being limited to pitching stories about clients or writing the company newsletter, a public relations employee needs to understand business, finance, marketing, strategic planning and research — the language of corporate America and the company boardroom, where the P.R. head is now likely to report to the chief executive. That understanding doesn’t have to come from formal education, but it is the stuff of most P.R. master’s curriculums. So is training in multimedia platforms, especially creating online content and using social media for promotion and advocacy, which is becoming a given in entry-level jobs.
Some journalists bring to the table specialized knowledge gained from covering a beat, but with colleges and universities graduating record numbers of students with public relations degrees (more than 20,000 are in the pipeline), those without one may be at a disadvantage.
The above quote is dead on. Eventually I’ll have thoughts on switching from journalism to public relations, but it’s still too early to comment sufficiently.
Thirteen weeks ago I was in the Istanbul Havalimani paying for my visa sticker. Excitement, anxiety and opportunity awaited me in Turkey.
Tomorrow, I won’t have any visa stamp added to the collection - only excitement, anxiety and opportunity.
Cheers.
In mid-October, I decided if the job hunt went cold in New York City I would pick up and head west to San Francisco.
Please, who was I kidding? NYC has always, and will always, be home. Leave New York? I’m delusional. Maybe some time down the road it will happen, but not right now. I’m not finished here.
After 2 1/2 months of job hunting + three freelancing gigs + 50+ online apps that clearly went into a black hole of nothing, I am employed.
It’s funny how things come together. I look back on this process and wonder, well, what if I didn’t leave this gig? Would this have happened?
Let me tell you, timing = everything. As helpless and scary as it sounds, it’s true.
So I’ll be working for this man’s PR firm. I couldn’t be happier. Mid-town Manhattan is my new home. I’m in my early twenty’s working in media in New York City. Don’t pinch me, I’m not ready to wake up. And because I’m in such an elated, overly-dramatic sentimental mood right now, I’ll end by saying:
If you’re honest with who you are and truly dedicated to your dreams and goals, nobody can stop you or tell you otherwise.
And that’s my spiel for tonight. Big sigh of relief. And hey, I’m employed just in time for Christmas! Clearly, my niece benefits the most from my circumstances. Time to spoil her like only an uncle can.
