My name is Anna Robinson. I am a second year student with an interest in Public Relations and Marketing. In my first co-op, I enjoyed working with the communications office at Antioch College assisting them with various tasks as well as having the creative freedom to write and capture photos for the school’s newspaper. Focusing on print journalism was refreshing while reconnecting with writing. However this year I wanted to expand towards a public relations job to see if these tasks would be something I would want to do in the future.
On-Ramps is a non profit organization that aims to help students interested in IT enrolled in DC high schools and neighboring states to develop their professional skills. I have partnered with my colleagues to co-organize meetings and incentives with students in classrooms and high school interns. Whenever I am not assisting students with our training, I manage our social media posts aimed to target students who are interested in engaging with the various programs we offer.
This week I joined virtual meetings with three high school classrooms talking about the importance of resume writing and concerns with theirs. We use a software called “Nearpods” which takes students from the meeting while interacting with each other here. I learned this is a good strategy in requiring students to stay engaged with the content. This also allows everyone to participate without feeling un-included. As we continued our meetings, a few students revealed they did not start writing a resume or felt inadequate, however we used time in our meeting to give suggestions and feedback.
While taking my co-op class and participating in my On-Ramps internship full time, I also study Marketing classes at Northern Virginia Community College. While this is one of the most difficult periods of my academic career given my workload, I have been gaining a lot of crucial experience in order to understand the life of a public relations specialist. In the future, I want to own my own firm that specializes in representing Black entertainers and crisis management. I believe my co-op and dual enrollment has given me leverage over my competitors in the communications field.
