A new era of learning

I am enrolled at Seneca Polytechnic’s Public Relations and Corporate Communications (PRCC) program in Toronto. It’s an intensive eight-month post-grad program. In the first semester, I am taking seven courses:

• Digital and social media: We learn about creating digital content for channels such as blogs and social media.
• Writing for public relations practitioners: Canadian Press style is considered industry standard and we learn to apply that when we write press releases, media advisories, media kits, and proposals.
• Introduction to research: This is our most academic course yet as we learn about social research. It’s possibly our most content-dense course. I’ve had to read more than 50 pages each weekend to prepare for weekly quizzes.
• Public relations management techniques - internal: How do we effectively communicate as a team to increase productivity? This course has many practical components that teach us how to work effectively in teams.
• Principles of public relations: Our most meta course. It teaches us about having a career in public relations or communications. We explore ethics, careers, and best practices.
• Media relations: Working with journalists is key to unlocking earned media. We learn how to write press releases and consider what a journalist needs to write their story.
• Strategic communication planning: This class teaches us how to think strategically. We create a communications plan by piecing together goals, objectives, strategies, and tactics.

Whew! And this is just the first semester!

What it’s like being a student in 2024

The last time I was a full-time student at an educational institution was in 2015, almost 10 years ago. There have been so many changes in technology that it has completely changed education.

The most obvious change is the development of GenAI. There isn’t a study companion quite like it. In the distant past, questions about course material could be resolved through three ways: ask the professor or TA, ask classmates or re-read the textbook.

Now, I can consult GenAI to summarize the concept or explain it to me like I’m five. Heck, I even ask it to create study questions to help me further engage with lecture material. It’s absolutely insane how learning has been re-imagined. There has never been a better time to be a student.

An observation that took me by surprise was how quickly Canva overtook PowerPoint and Google Slides. I have yet to see a classmate create a presentation with legacy tools. Everyone is using Canva. It’s a relatively new player in the presentation space, yet it’s quickly become the go-to tool for students to design documents. Students are so quick to adopt new technology and the pace of change shocked me. Microsoft and Google have held a firm grip on the presentation space for a long time, and witnessing it being uprooted feels unsettling.

Another useful cloud-based tool that has gained tremendous popularity is Notion. It didn’t exist when I was last in school. It’s particularly useful to help me organize my assignments and due dates–believe it or not, I used a paper planner in the past to do this (I know, I’m old school). I created a Notion calendar of our due dates and shared it with my classmates.

An education that teaches practical skills

School always projected an image of being too academic and irrelevant to the job market. Not the PRCC program. The course materials have exceeded my expectations in helping students develop professional skills. All our assignments are tied to projects that communications professionals will complete in the professional setting.

In our internal communications class, we learned about an internal communications policy, which outlines how teams could effectively communicate to enable knowledge exchange. We apply what we learn by creating a policy through an international collaboration called Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL). We were put into groups with Belgian students from Artevelde University of Applied Sciences. Our first assignment was to develop an internal communications policy outlining our roles and responsibilities, values, and how we will resolve conflicts. Pretty cool, huh?

For our Principles of Public Relations class, our first assignment was to research communications jobs and analyze specs such as credentials, organizational culture, and compensation. I worked with a partner to complete this assignment, and exchanging our findings gave us a better understanding of the jobs we can expect when we graduate from PRCC.

In our Digital and Social Communications class, we will create a blog on WordPress to cultivate our writing skills and understand how to strategically think about content creation. The weeks leading up to the blog creation consist of bite-sized homework, such as a SWOT analysis, defining our brand and reviewing what makes a good blog. Our professor said the blog helped many past students land a job because it showed critical thinking and writing skills. Also, knowing WordPress impressed employers since it’s considered industry standard. Honestly, what better way to assess a person’s skills than to see how they articulate? When hiring managers just have a resume to work off of, they aren’t getting a complete picture of your skills. A blog exposes your thinking.

The amount of group work required in the program is insane, to say the least. Six of my seven classes have a group project component. We use WhatsApp as our primary communications channel, which means I have six active group chats, one per group. On top of that, I manage a few of my groups by delegating tasks and facilitating meetings, so I also need to monitor timelines. The program emphasizes that to be successful in communications requires collaboration, collaboration, collaboration.

Not taking education for granted

“It’s nice to see that you really want to learn in this program.”

-Classmate

Out of the blue, one of my classmates said the above to me. Another classmate made the same remark. And it’s true. I used to have so many questions about communications, but I had no one to ask. I’m a contractor at a non-profit and the people I work with have a marketing background. But I have yet to work with someone who understands how to manage brand reputation that is not directly tied to marketing transactions. This is the line that separates marketing and communications. The former is tied to conversion. The latter is about building trust.

Never have I ever been more engaged and invested in my education. I ask questions in every single class without fail. Perhaps I was starved to learn for so long, so I’m making up for all the questions I’ve collected all these years. I’m so grateful to be in school now because I am gaining knowledge that was very hard to acquire by myself. In the past, I learned independently by relying on Google search and sporadically taking online courses. It was all so scattered. But now I have access to experts who have decades of experience in communications, and I am so curious about their approaches and perspectives. It’s so much fun.