Best of… Student Posts Take Center Stage

My students were rock stars this term. They all completed the blog assignment and did so with flying colors. I had lots of favorite posts and enjoyed reading their blogs. But I picked out a few to share (in no particular order).

Courtney Parks shares some Words to Live By and discusses a great post on Ragan.com about getting the most from a PR major. She ruminates on her own experience and adds to the original author’s advice.

Shannon Sloan in bound for Portland and the SOJC’s Senior Experience program this spring. She shares her hopes, fears and goals with readers in this post: Portland Experience, Here I Come. (Shannon, you will be GREAT!)

Ashley Aronson is one of two students who blogged about event planning (and did so very well!). Ashley shares some advice on Keeping Your Guests Happy. Good advice on some oft-overlooked details.

Lindsay Lake, the other event planner blogger, shares this post – Time to Re-prioritize Your Plan of Events – noting that the event starts well before the event thanks to social media sharing.

Dawn Noufer blogs about delicious adult beverages from a PR perspective. I liked this post a lot – Hip Hop & Liquor: An Affair to Remember. Product placement in music is such a weird concept.

Aundria Hanset-Clark didn’t focus on the beverage industry, generally, but had this post – How Much Wodka Vodka Did They Drink? – about a marketing misstep by a Vodka company who thought it was being funny.

Students (like the rest of us) have been interested in the Penn State crisis from a communications perspective. Mostly, they had questions (like the rest of us) and, as young professionals, imagined what it would be like to represent the university at such a time.

Austin Clark’s post, Joe’s Woes, asking if it’s possible for Joe Paterno to leave any kind of positive legacy with the way his career ended.

Joe Schiller’s So Long JoePa breaks down Joe Paterno’s apparent role and also wonders about a solution.

Gun Kang offers some pretty solid crisis management advice to Penn State in his post From Linebacker U to Pedophile U.

Related, but on a much different note, Rachel Gehr looks at Ashton Kutcher’s decision to hand his account over to his social media team after his “mistweet” about Penn State firing Joe Paterno. Rachel’s post, With 8 Million Followers It’s Important to Know the Whole Story, is rightfully critical of Kutcher’s decision.

Darby Rousseau blogged about politics this term and specifically about the GOP nomination horse race. Her post, The Rise of Newt, looks at … well, the rist of Newt Gingrich. Will Newt’s performance in the debates and public appearances help people forgive his political baggage? We shall see.

Antonia Gomez added her perspective to a Ragan.com post on PR lessons learned from cartoon characters. Like me, she’s a fan of How To Train A Dragon and her post What Dragons, Monsters and Dogs All Have in Common shares some lessons learned from that movie and a couple of others.

Kathryn Beck shares her review of Seth Godin’s The Dip by way of a personal “survival” story.

Micaela Sicroff blogged about hospitality PR and her post, The Increasing Importance of Social Media in the Hotel Industry, shares some tips and observations.

A few students posted about a recent study on sarcasm. I was intrigued by Katherine Allred’s title, To Tear Flesh Like Dogs, and her observations.

One of the class’ fashionistas, Allie Hawes shared how first-person perspectives of fashion week events are changing the way brands communicate in Fashion Week from Yours Truly.

I found Tracy Reiss’ perspective on this post, Presentations and Social Media, so interesting and very different than the reaction many of my friends and colleagues had to the original about how social media is changing presentations. Most people said social media made it scarier to present at conferences or events. Tracy, who is, by her own account, a nervous presenter, took the opposite view.

Lots of students blogged about the Kardashians in some form (and many of the posts were very good). I thought Erin Kelley’s post, Petite Fashion, was a nice take on this theme about the work of a fashion publicist to promote the fashion choices of a toddler.

Olivia Johnston opened my eyes to an interesting task and time management system in her post, Food for Thought. As an aside, Olivia also had among the best headlines all term.

Hannah Longo’s posts were about PR from a “newbie” perspective. Her post, A Trip Down Easy Street Provided By Career Centers, is a good reminder to students of all the amazing resources available.

That’s it! If you are a student (or a reader) and had another favorite from the term, I’d love to hear about it.