Public Relations Major

Get networking! Our Upside-Down Curriculum allows you to take courses in your Public Relations degree program starting in your first semester.

Why Public Relations?

Do you like making connections? Do you enjoy blogging? Are you a whiz at Facebooking? Do you write for your school newspaper? Are you involved in community outreach, political campaigns or fundraisers for good causes?

If you are the kind of person who likes working with people and likes crafting messages, consider a career in Public Relations.

The point of public relations is to build trustworthy awareness of your client’s cause through meeting, helping and directing people, and otherwise reaching out. The PR process includes research, audience analysis, strategy design, communication/implementation and evaluation.

Among the fastest-growing professions in the country (according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of PR positions is expected to grow 24 percent through 2018), public relations professionals thrive on being in the thick of the action and getting as many others involved as possible.

Why Public Relations at Champlain?

Through the hands-on nature of the Public Relations major at Champlain, you’ll work on extensive client-based, semester-long projects. You’ll learn how to develop a whole PR campaign for a single client, and then you’ll implement it. You’ll write press releases, contact the press, arrange for interviews, set up Facebook and other social media pages, host events and more.

In 2011, after one student group presented its public relations campaign to a group of VIPs at Green Mountain Coffee Roasters in Waterbury, Vt., Rick Peyser, the company director of social responsibility, said, "I have sat through a lot of graduate school presentations; this was the finest I have ever heard." It’s no wonder that 100 percent of the Public Relations majors from Champlain’s graduating class of 2010 are already employed full-time as PR professionals.

Experience Champlain's hands-on difference. The College’s extensive professional network of PR departments and firms provides ongoing one-on-one mentoring and continual opportunities to apply what you’re learning to real-world projects and assignments that are far beyond the scope of what a college student would typically encounter.
Study event planning, media relations, social media, public speaking, and writing and producing news releases, brochures and newsletters. And put everything you’re learning immediately to work on projects for real companies, including People Making Good, Seventh Generation, Lake Champlain Chocolates and Fuse Marketing.
Practice real-world skills and hone your competitive edge with extensive internships in places like ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Center, Hall Communications, Kelliher Samets Volk, Alpha Media Group in New York City, People Making Good, Seventh Generation, Lake Champlain Chocolates and Fuse Marketing.
Use professional video, audio and multi-media and computer graphics equipment to complete your coursework.
Gain global perspective by taking a semester abroad. The curriculum has been designed to enable you to study for a semester abroad at a Champlain campus in either Montreal, Canada, or Dublin, Ireland, or anywhere in the world through our study-abroad partners.