Friday, November 3rd, was one of those days that when you look back makes you want to smile, cry, laugh hysterically, and sweat. Yes, I said sweat. I’ll explain later.
I remember distinctly being ready for bed the night before at a stunningly early 10 p.m. after my weekly dose of Scandal on TGIT, but of course, the night before a big day translates to being restless and waking up an hour after you’ve managed to finally fall asleep. To begin this trip, we were scheduled to leave the Forbes bus circle at 5:45, meaning that I needed to wake up and put on my big girl shoes at 4:30 in the morning. I’m a freshman which means I get the “luxury” of dorm life, particularly the really far away dorm life in Shenandoah Hall; that being said, one of the executive board members was extremely kind to pick me up and drive me to the bus circle, saving a brisk, 30 minute walk at 5 a.m. After leaving the bus circle, just a few minutes late (give us a break it’s early), we departed for D.C., ready to embark on a day filled with agency visits, networking, and food. Let me start by saying that the bus was cold when we got on and it wasn’t until we were about 30 minutes away from our first stop that the heat was turned on. And boy, did it turn on. Our first official stop off the bus was to Starbucks, which single-handedly revitalized each and every one of us. With coffee in hand, we embarked on our journey to professionalism. The first agency visit of the day was to Finn Partners, a small public-policy focused PR firm that works closely with education policy and reform. The agency known as a Widmeyer Communications group, was bought by Peter Finn, and starts at the grassroots level in hopes of influencing policymakers. They bought breakfast for us in the danish and bagel variety, and they were all really nice people. For my first agency visit ever it was a really cool experience, but it wasn’t anything like I had imagined. This visit changed my perception of agency life a little bit, until the next visit... Next we went to Porter-Novelli, one of the largest PR agencies in the world, and I realized that there are PR firms of all shapes and sizes. I particularly loved Porter Novelli because the atmosphere seemed really fun, close knit, and authentic. Hearing them talk about some of the accounts they’ve worked on I found myself drooling a little bit. Moving as fast as we could in uncomfortable shoes, we made it nearly on time to our next stop, The Herald Group. As we walked in, the aroma of Potbelly Sandwiches welcomed us and we all were so happy to see food again. We got sandwiches, drinks, chips, and sat down eager to hear from The Herald Group, another small but reputable agency. This visit was set up much more like a Q&A session which was very beneficial to us and our fancy padfolios. They gave us a little bit of a background on their company and how they have about 20-30 employees who work on a vast array of issues and clients (many confidential), and then they opened the floor up to questions. The Herald Group gave us a lot of great insight on what skills they look for including writing skills, attention to detail, the ability to research and simplifying down, and productivity connected to problem-solving. They suggested that we take as many internships as we can get, work on campaigns, take more writing classes than we may need, and learn different aspects of technology. Beyond that, they gave us advice on how to conduct yourself in an interview and gave us more information about what it would be like to be an intern there. Even though we had bellies full of Potbelly’s, it was lunch time, and we had a reservation to one of the top restaurants in D.C.: Founding Farmers. Our reservation time was fast approaching, so we called ahead and told them that we were on our way to avoid them giving away our table. But guess what they did anyway? They gave away our table. We got there one minute late with a previous heads up call, and still, no table. By then the smell of the food and the hip atmosphere lured us in and we were waiting no matter how long it took. We got seated not too much later though and enjoyed some pretty amazing, pricey food. Mind you, by this time it was after 1 pm so that meant we had been up for 8 hours already, but our day was only halfway over. Edelman was next on our agenda, and I was feeling pretty anxious about going there. Edelman is the largest agency in the world and I almost felt intimidated by it, but once we got there I realized there was nothing to be afraid of. They set up their session with us a lot like The Herald Group did which was nice and casual and we learned a lot about the kind of people who work at Edelman. They hire passionate and curious people who have experience/internships, and they emphasized that at Edelman you work with the best of the best and you have the chance to “carve your own path” and you can continuously reinvent yourself and your career there. It seemed to me like the opportunities were endless at Edelman. Sidenote about Edelman: we had to sign in with our ID and we got cool, printed visitor name tags. I felt so corporate. Our final, official stop of the day was to Verizon to visit a former PRSSA member and to check in with him on how the corporate side of things are. It was really cool to see how different the two environments were but also how they were alike. While our guide wasn’t exactly in the communications department at Verizon, he has worked closely with them and knew a bit about the types of tasks they perform on a daily basis. I think it’s really valuable to always be working on one brand and the work hours are much more consistent, but I’m still unsure which is the right path for me. He gave us a lot of insight into the positives of working corporate including you have the power to control the company and take credit for good work, the networking is great, consistent work hours, and you get a 360 degree view of corporate business which is super beneficial. I think after a full day of agency life, a change of pace was exactly what we needed. And boy, did Verizon deliver. Their office is incredible. The entire office was created to wow stakeholders and government officials so that they would continue or begin to back Verizon financially and supportively. The office was a maze of interactive modules, each with a specific purpose in building the brand without explicitly building the brand. We were in complete awe our entire time there and we got to definitely see some of the luxuries of corporate life. When we were wrapping up our Verizon presentation we had nearly two hours before our next scheduled event. And that “unfortunate” break happened to occur during Happy Hour. That being said, our legal half of the group went to a nearby bar while the other half took pictures outside, bonded, and walked over early to our Alumni event. Our JMU Alumni event was held in the Washington Center, where our Washington abroad program is held, and we had wraps and indulgent desserts to complete our long day. While we didn’t have many alumni attend, we had a really great time getting to know some of the successful JMU graduates and learning about their journeys post-grad. The alumni event wrapped up at about 8:30 and after crossing a terrifying road of traffic, we bid adieu to D.C. after our exhausting day. But that’s not where the story ends. When we reached our bus, it was freezing. So we naively asked the bus driver, John, to turn the heat on. If only we knew. In a matter of 20 minutes, the bus was hot, really hot. I don’t think I mentioned before but I sat in the back of the bus, the source of the heat and I was cooking. It only got worse from there; we felt the clothes begin to stick to our bodies, the sweat continued to drop from our faces, and we plastered ourselves to the window where the cold air from outside caused a cold condensation. We all began to look around at each other in desperation and pity, and our GroupMe started to explode with cries for help and last goodbyes. Instead of the Friendsgiving we planned for the following week, we talked about it becoming our funeral instead. That wasn’t the only issue with the ride back though. About halfway through, John started to show signs of road rage, as he began yelling repeatedly “I can’t see shit!” Those seated in the front of the bus started to report Johns’ actions, giving us minute-to-minute reports on his swearing and swerving. Jenna Schneider, being the leader of the trip, decided to step up and tell him to turn off the heat, (even though there is no reason that he shouldn’t have realized it himself). When she approached him the first time, there was no response, so naturally she tried again, and again, and nothing. She sat back down and we all whimpered in unison. We were counting down the miles to Exit 245 and cheered solemnly every 5. Eventually, nearly 10 miles away, Taryn, a member of PRSSA sitting in the front, got up and demanded attention, saving us all from our slow, burning deaths. The bus circle was in sight and we were free. The day was full of happy and inspirational moments, but we were exhausted after being awake for 18 hours and sweltering on a bus. We had only hoped to gain valuable knowledge and possibly a future internship, but what seemed to be our last moments with each other, we also grew closer as a club. - Amanda Christian
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