“I know not what the future holds, but I know who holds the future”: FUTURE CAMP 2010

I usually steer clear of thinking too much about the future and focus on what is happening in my life at the current time. I have adopted a philosophy that works well for me, and that is to live in the now. I try to take the experiences I’ve learned in the past to guide me each day. I realize that things I don’t like about the past need to stay in the past and that the future really does remain a mystery. I wasn’t too fond about the concept of Future Camp at first, but once I attended it I changed my mind.

Future Camp 2010 was a great way to end off a wonderful first semester of PR. Michael Cayley has done a great job of teaching and giving us practical experience in the realm of social media. Although tough at times, this class was very helpful, fun, and a great learning experience. I now feel much more confident in using social media and will take these learned skills and use them for the rest of my life and throughout my career in PR.

Future Camp was organized and lead by two of my classmates, Jenna and Zack. They did a great job of creating a fun and interactive seminar for us. Myself and all of my classmates sat in groups according to which area of PR we plan to work for one day. Although there is still time to change our minds, I chose to sit in the Corporate section as that is the sector I am most currently interested in working in.

So… what has Future Camp taught us?

As PR students, we now realize the importance of staying connected with one another after we graduate. Networking and relationships are critical in the PR world so we brainstormed ways in which we could maintain our social capital.

As ideas were being thrown around, some great ones really stuck out:

– #YnotW:     We came up with the idea to create a hashtag on Twitter for the weekly Why Not Wednesdays that our class participates in. I have yet to attend one of these but will make sure to do so in the coming months.

– Monthly Meet-ups:     We have decided that once we graduate and move into the working world, we would like to have get-togethers monthly or bi-monthly to keep in touch.

– Facebook:     We all have Facebook, so why not take advantage of this social media tool to keep us connected? We are hoping to create a Facebook group or maintain the one we already have to stay up date date with each others’ lives.

Simply put, our connections to one another are everything. We all have such different interests and different goals in the PR industry, but we can all help each other out. As we have learned through our various group projects, we all have different ideas and skills that when put together, can create something wonderful. Let’s carry this over to the working world to make the best out of our futures!

That being said, we may not know our futures, but we are the ones who hold the power in shaping them.

Check out Sheree’s thoughts about her experience at Future Camp 2010!

~ by Kali on April 30, 2010.