PRSSA stands for Public Relations Student Society of America, and is a national club with a chapter here at UVU. UVU junior and President of the PRSSA club McKenzie Butterfield, briefly explained that PRSSA is “the club for Public Relations majors but we encourage anyone to join. It’s really good to just network if you want to get into business, public relations, or journalism.”
So what is PR? Grace Anderson, a PRSSA member stated, “The way I’ve always described [PR] is the face that you see for a company or for an organization. It’s like ‘this is what the company does, this is who and what we do, this is our mission.’” Anderson started in public relations as a public affairs specialist for the U.S. Army and is studying at UVU with an emphasis in Crisis Communications.
“It’s had a pretty good impact. I went to a couple of events and I’ve gotten to learn about case studies that they’ve done and interacted with professionals, and I’ve only been part of it since the beginning of [fall] semester. I’ve already been introduced to a lot of different types of people so that’s real awesome,” said Anderson, when asked about her experiences as a member of PRSSA.
Emily Olesen, graduating December 2020, always had heard about PRSSA in her classes but “never really took advantage of it,” until last February.
“There was a fashion PR event which really caught my interest because I really like fashion and so I went to that event and I loved it! It made me decide that it was what I wanted to do with my career, and… it made me decide to get involved with PRSSA,” said Olesen. She later explained that three weeks after her first involvement with the club, Olesen ran in the elections for the Executive Board (or student board of the club) and continued to get involved.
Reed Younger, Vice President of Club Events for PRSSA stated how his involvement in the club changed him, “I first started school majoring in biotechnology, but then I realized I’m really bad at chemistry. From that I had a lot of friends who were majoring in PR and they recommended it to me because I’m not as analytical as a scientist, I’m a lot more creative. So PR gives me the opportunity to think more creatively and engage in projects that I’m actually interested in.”
The PRSSA club will be hosting a PRSSA Welcome Carnival Tuesday, January 28 2020 at 7 PM MST. Visit the PRSSA Facebook page or official website for more information.
