My name is Hatty Ruddock. I am a seventeen year old from Berkhamsted School in year twelve and I have spent the last two weeks at Catalysis for my work experience.
I am a very sociable person and love to work with groups of people, so after much discussion and enquiry I thought public relations would be the career path I would like to follow.
I managed to speak to a PR consultant from Publicasity before arriving at Catalysis. She told me her daily activities included meetings with clients and company members, contacting journalists and writing press releases. Also, she discussed with me how to promote a brand or company through different media forms, particularly the increasingly popular social networking sites.
As a result, I had a loose idea about how a PR company works, but my time at Catalysis has given me the opportunity to work on PR projects myself for the first time. For example, I’ve worked on desk research for specific articles regarding technological advances in education and projection mapping, which have been fascinating. Also, I’ve been analysing data for Intel newsletters and conducting venue research. As you are probably expecting from a seventeen year old, I really enjoyed working on the Facebook and Twitter research, second only to working on YouTube videos. You definitely do not get to do that in a school research task! I was most apprehensive about phoning companies but I was soon cured of this after a morning on the phone to hotels.
What I have enjoyed most during my time here, much to my surprise, is researching technology that will affect me in the future or that already affects me today without me knowing it. Also, I enjoyed the process and development of tasks for clients; how well everyone within the company works together and how piece by piece the task is completed. The most difficult aspects of my work were learning how to use Windows 7 and finding contact details for journalists or clients who do not want to be found. My colleagues for the past fortnight have been so friendly and helpful, and have welcomed me so quickly into the company. However, I feel as if I have been here no time at all and I will be very sad to leave.
This opportunity has removed any doubts I had about working in PR and solidified in my mind that this is the future career path I wish to follow.
I was very nervous at first about working with Catalysis. Before coming here, I had a very narrow view of PR companies that specialise in promoting technology companies, but I have proved to myself that technology affects us every day and I was able to join in discussions, much to my surprise. My time here has also broadened my future career prospects in that I would be happy to work with any PR firm now, rather than just those promoting food companies or household brands, as I had originally thought.
I would like to thank everyone at Catalysis for making me feel so welcome and lucky to be working here. I’d particularly like to mention Becky and Peter for teaching me an entire new life skill as well as giving the opportunity to work at the best PR and marketing company ever. But then again, I am hugely biased!