PR Student Brings Skills to Student Government Campaign

What prompted you to choose PR as your major?

I chose PR as my major because I like how what we learn in the classroom is current to what’s going on in the world. You don’t really get that with most math or science based majors.

What is your position with the Thor/Wills campaign?

Campaign manager. My role has been to make sure the campaign is running smoothly on a day-to-day basis. For the most part, this includes making sure that we have volunteers to campaign on campus every day, maintaining our Facebook and Twitter accounts and reaching out to University of Texas student organizations for support.

 How did you get involved in this campaign?

Thor and Wills have both been some of my closest friends since elementary school so when they initially came to me with the idea of running, I was completely on board. They are both very genuine guys and I know that they will do a great job representing the student body.

What sort of PR efforts have you employed for this campaign?

We have focused a lot on social media. Obviously just about every student has a Facebook page or uses Twitter, so that has been the best way to connect with as many students as possible. That being said, every campaign utilized these two social media outlets so we decided to take it one step further and create our own YouTube channel that featured short videos about Thor and Wills’ platform and what was going on during the election.

How is this experience different from your PR experience in classes or internships?

I feel like anything where you’re able to get real hands on experience is going to be more beneficial than being in a classroom. Coming into the election Thor, Wills and I all agreed that win or lose, we were going to gain so much from this experience, and that has been very true. It has been awesome meeting all these UT students that, if it weren’t for the election, I would have most likely never met. This election has taught me a lot about communicating with others that have different backgrounds than I do. It has also taught me a lot about ethical behavior. If an employer ever asks me about ethics in an interview, I think I could talk about the subject for hours now.

Will all the controversy surrounding the student government elections did you change your strategy at all? Why or why not?

No, we never really changed our strategy that much. I think we knew that if we just kept doing what we were doing people were going to start realizing how great of guys Thor and Wills are. If Thor and Wills just stayed true to their beliefs and keep meeting as many students as possible, we had a great shot at winning this election, and they did.