Firstly, apologies for the complete lack of posts over the last 5 months. My third and final year of university has been completely manic, but thoroughly enjoyable; it's hard to believe that I shall be having my last ever official day at university tomorrow! The past three years have gone so quickly, though they seem to have dragged at times!
My dissertation on how PR and Marketing can be utilised for town centre management has been handed in over a month ago, my last exam is tomorrow and all individual and group assignments have been completed! I have a job at a small local marketing agency confirmed and I start my role as Client Executive in July, following my seven month internship alongside my final year of university and I'm so excited that it's all come together! But before that, time for a well deserved, much needed break (including two weeks on holiday in sunny Greece!!).
I just thought I'd have a break from revision and for any students anywhere revising for their exams, whether it's GCSEs, A Levels, university, post-grad or even a work based/ open university qualification, here are my top revising tips that I thought I would share with you quickly:
- Keep a revision blog: not only is it better than hand writing absolutely everything, if it really comes down to it you can show your lecturers/parents/anyone who needs to know that you really have been revising.
- Take regular breaks: it's easy to cram and think that you should immediately know something after having gone through it. I don't understand the technicalities behind it all, but sometimes sleeping on things really does give your brain time to process and remember properly.
- Practice, yes mock exams are dire and just about as annoying as the real thing... but practice makes perfect and even better if you can get actual feedback from your teacher/ lecturer, it will also point out your weaker areas that you weren't aware of prior to the mock.
- Sometimes having the TV or music on in the background can help you remember things via association- even if you aren't aware of it at the time. You could be sat in your exam and the littlest thing like a line in a song or a TV show can promote memory and help get over mental blocks.
- Mind maps and cue cards. If you have months and months to prepare for an exam (most likely GCSE and A levels than uni, etc), make cue cards of things you need to know, stick them in places you look everyday i.e.: the mirror, the shower door, the wall you first look at when you wake up, etc. Choose a different area for different topics and you'll easily recall what was on the cue cards by locating them visually in your house. Colourful mind maps can also help you remember.
- Create portfolios and then keep condensing until you're down to a page or two. (One of my favourites). Get a ring binder folder and put everything in it that you will need to know for the exam- order/ structure it how you think is best for you. Keep adding to it as you learn more and more, do wider reading, etc. Then when you think you have everything and are down to the 'just revising' stage, condense all the info. Keep re-writing it out, cutting it down more and more gradually. You'll find you start writing things in your own codes which will help you remember in the exam easily or you will feel the need to not write things altogether because you have started to remember them automatically. Then when you're down to a page or two of the stuff you really need reminding of, make these into mind maps or cue cards and follow the above steps with those.
-Work out your exam timings. If you have a three hour exam, how many questions do you have to answer in that time? How long do you want to spend reading and planning and how long writing? Pre-plan this to ensure efficiency and that you get to answer all the questions and finish the exam properly.
- Allow yourself plenty of time. Revising everything the day before won't do you any favours.
- Get at least 8 hours of sleep the night before. Also, chill out the evening before. Put your revision things away before dinner, have dinner and do something relaxing, i.e.: take a bath and watch a favourite film or TV series. Take some time for you; feeling relaxed will help de-worry and de-stress you for the next day! It will also help you get to sleep at a decent hour. Pack your bag the night before too, so you're not rushing around either!
- The morning of your exam, have a good breakfast. My personal favourite is green tea, 2 slices of wholemeal toast and a banana. Then about an hour before the exam, have a coffee (or something with a little sugar in it for a bit of an energy boost). Also, take a bottle of water in with you, as it will help keep you refreshed and hydrate your brain, helping you to think more clearly and stay on track.
- Above all else, if you know you've done everything you possibly could, you should be fine. No one can ask more of you than what you are physically and mentally capable of. Remember that exams are a big deal, but no the end of the world, and things tend to have a way of working themselves out also
Hope this helps any fellow exam-takers out there, either this summer or in the future, if you stumble across this post. Good luck!
Showing posts with label public relations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label public relations. Show all posts
Monday, 2 June 2014
Tuesday, 2 April 2013
Best practice traffic building?
Here is a link to our coursework two for our recommendations for best practice traffic building loaded onto Issuu.com. This is for our Digital technologies for marketing module:
Enjoy!
Monday, 11 February 2013
Guest Speaker of the week
This week in my PR practice and skillset lecture we had Paul Stallard of Berkeley PR come to talk to us about his experiences, what life is like at his agency and to also gives us a couple of briefs that were previously live for practice.
Firstly we were told that everyday is different- a lot of speakers say this- but that's good because that's what we like to hear and the more people say it the more believable it's becoming. None of us want to be committed to desk tapping away five days a week! We want to be out there and really involved with brands and campaigns and just learning how to become a great PR person!
We also discussed what makes a good story and in Paul's opinion it's bad news, human interest, topical and a great story has all three!I'm going to mentally bookmark that bit of useful information for when I start working! He also told us that to create a great press release and also include the above tips (obviously you don't want to be spending bad news about clients) is that you have to position your client as the solution to a bad situation where possible. So do some research, find out market statistics that aren't so great or are a cause for concern and then bring in your client's company as the hero to the problem- it sounds so simple and actually really straight forward, but I've never of it like that before or heard it in those exact words- it suddenly made a lot of sense to be honest!
The brand that our group got was a shopping centre (not sure if I'm allowed to name names so I won't) and they wanted to get more traffic into the shopping centre and make it attractive to children and families over the summer holidays. Our team came up with the idea of having weekly themes for the shopping centre such as an underwater theme (Finding Nemo), the zoo (Madagascar), a beach theme (Little Mermaid), and so on. Each week there would be an array of activities that matched the week's theme such as face painting, story telling, small rides, a mini beach. Shops would help out too such as Waterstones conducting the story telling and the Disney store have staff dress up as themed characters, and so on. It sounded like a pretty exciting campaign to be honest, we got so carried away with it it was hard to remember that it was all theoretical!
Every time a speaker comes in it really inspires me to go out there and start working already! I've got an internship interview next Monday, keeping my fingers crossed!
Firstly we were told that everyday is different- a lot of speakers say this- but that's good because that's what we like to hear and the more people say it the more believable it's becoming. None of us want to be committed to desk tapping away five days a week! We want to be out there and really involved with brands and campaigns and just learning how to become a great PR person!
We also discussed what makes a good story and in Paul's opinion it's bad news, human interest, topical and a great story has all three!I'm going to mentally bookmark that bit of useful information for when I start working! He also told us that to create a great press release and also include the above tips (obviously you don't want to be spending bad news about clients) is that you have to position your client as the solution to a bad situation where possible. So do some research, find out market statistics that aren't so great or are a cause for concern and then bring in your client's company as the hero to the problem- it sounds so simple and actually really straight forward, but I've never of it like that before or heard it in those exact words- it suddenly made a lot of sense to be honest!
The brand that our group got was a shopping centre (not sure if I'm allowed to name names so I won't) and they wanted to get more traffic into the shopping centre and make it attractive to children and families over the summer holidays. Our team came up with the idea of having weekly themes for the shopping centre such as an underwater theme (Finding Nemo), the zoo (Madagascar), a beach theme (Little Mermaid), and so on. Each week there would be an array of activities that matched the week's theme such as face painting, story telling, small rides, a mini beach. Shops would help out too such as Waterstones conducting the story telling and the Disney store have staff dress up as themed characters, and so on. It sounded like a pretty exciting campaign to be honest, we got so carried away with it it was hard to remember that it was all theoretical!
Every time a speaker comes in it really inspires me to go out there and start working already! I've got an internship interview next Monday, keeping my fingers crossed!
Wednesday, 9 January 2013
A Funny Analogy
So here's a funny thing I learnt in my PR lecture today. Being the one who makes the tea at a workplace is actually constructive! I've been in plenty of situations where you're the new one and it's down to you to make the tea, however this is a good practice for project management!
Imagine you've got four people's drinks to make, all are different. Imagine each cup is a client or project and you need to make sure that they are all done and served whilst they're still hot- there we already have one skill that is multi-tasking. You will also have to remember what each drink requires and remember which one is which when serving up.
Now taking a step back you need to figure out what ingredients you have to work with before asking what each person wants, for example if you don't have skimmed milk you can't promise to put it in someone's drink when they ask for it. Lesson number two: you need to do your research before trying to fulfil a client's needs and don't promise something you're not 100% sure you can't deliver.
Now to the making of the drinks; if you're new somewhere you need to figure out your surroundings, if they have a complicated coffee machine chances are you won't know how to use it... So, figure it out- acquire a new skill you didn't have before in order to fulfil your task!
Now to delivering the drinks, four drinks plus your own means more than you can carry so you need to think about the logistics of everything and acquiring the right resources that you may need, in this instance you would need a tray of some sort.
Upon delivery people may check with you that you definitely put sugar in it or if you're sure you used decaf coffee. Think of this as an evaluation and people may come back to you and either say 'it was lovely' or they'll give you feedback such as 'next time could you make it stronger.' Use this as constructive feedback and reflect upon your actions on what you think you could have done better. This is all experience so the next time you make the drinks you'll know what to do without even asking and your performance will only get better.
I thought this was a pretty good analogy that I wanted to share with you- oh and the fact that I also work in a café also meant it caught my attention... I'll never look at a cup of coffee the same way again!
Imagine you've got four people's drinks to make, all are different. Imagine each cup is a client or project and you need to make sure that they are all done and served whilst they're still hot- there we already have one skill that is multi-tasking. You will also have to remember what each drink requires and remember which one is which when serving up.
Now taking a step back you need to figure out what ingredients you have to work with before asking what each person wants, for example if you don't have skimmed milk you can't promise to put it in someone's drink when they ask for it. Lesson number two: you need to do your research before trying to fulfil a client's needs and don't promise something you're not 100% sure you can't deliver.
Now to the making of the drinks; if you're new somewhere you need to figure out your surroundings, if they have a complicated coffee machine chances are you won't know how to use it... So, figure it out- acquire a new skill you didn't have before in order to fulfil your task!
Now to delivering the drinks, four drinks plus your own means more than you can carry so you need to think about the logistics of everything and acquiring the right resources that you may need, in this instance you would need a tray of some sort.
Upon delivery people may check with you that you definitely put sugar in it or if you're sure you used decaf coffee. Think of this as an evaluation and people may come back to you and either say 'it was lovely' or they'll give you feedback such as 'next time could you make it stronger.' Use this as constructive feedback and reflect upon your actions on what you think you could have done better. This is all experience so the next time you make the drinks you'll know what to do without even asking and your performance will only get better.
I thought this was a pretty good analogy that I wanted to share with you- oh and the fact that I also work in a café also meant it caught my attention... I'll never look at a cup of coffee the same way again!
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