Wednesday 23rd March saw a trio from MCC International attending Southampton Solent University’s third annual “Meet The Professionals” evening for second and third year PR & Communications students. Run in conjunction in the CIPR’s Wessex Branch, the speed-dating style event brought together 11 PR professionals from across Hampshire to give students the chance to meet with a mixture of practitioners from agencies, in-house, public and private sector, B2B and B2C.
Graham, Sarah and I are all Solent alumni ourselves from the past 20 years and so jumped at the chance to return to our old stomping grounds, though admittedly we didn’t get a chance to revisit the much loved Student Union! With 10 minute slots and a trio of chatterboxes on our side alone, it was a bit difficult to answer all the questions ranging from how to secure a job through to proper tea making etiquette. In fact, we even managed to mess up the timings somewhat by holding onto a particularly enthusiastic student group for two “dates”!
It was really inspiring to see such a well prepared turnout for the event and many business cards were handed out to interested students. As a result we’ve even arranged for one to come and join us next week for some work experience and shadowing.
Social media might be taking over the communications world but there is nothing as effective as face-to-face networking for both students and practitioners alike. As Catherine Sweet, Course Leader and Senior Lecturer for PR & Communications at Southampton Solent summarised: “There is something to be said about synchronous communication of the good old fashioned face-to-face variety. How often does that happen on Facebook?”
For further information and a different perspective on the event, I recommend you check out Catherine’s blog at http://catherinesweet.wordpress.com/
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