Studying public relations (PR) in college has changed drastically over the years.
For me, it’s been nearly 40 years since I earned my undergrad in communications, with an emphasis in public relations.
Today, if you want to get a degree in public relations, you’ll be expected to learn a lot more than creating a strategic communications plan to establish mutually beneficial relationships between an organization and its stakeholders.
You’ll also be expected to learn about:
- Advertising
- Marketing
- Graphic design
- Typesetting (desktop publishing)
- Social media
- Video production
- Media buying
- And more
This, in theory, should mean the younger PR practitioners are going to have a much wider range of skills in their toolbox from the get-go.
I had to pick up many of these ancillary skills during the course of my career.
Curriculum Examples
After teaching PR-focused courses at Milligan University during the 2025/26 school year, I’m now an adjunct instructor for the Media and Communication department at East Tennessee State University. ETSU is the second largest university in East Tennessee (University of Tennessee in Knoxville is the largest).
Going from Milligan to ETSU has been quite the change.
Milligan, a faith-based university, is much smaller. I only taught one class each semester, and the same four students were in each class.
This fall semester I’m teaching three classes: two on-campus and one online. I have around 20 students in each class. (That’s a lot of names to learn.)
Here’s a quick overview of these three courses and the kind of skills you can expect from the up-and-coming PR/communications professionals.
MCOM-1030: Media Literacy
This general education class draws mostly freshmen, but it’s the one that reshapes how they think about media influence.
Students learn that most media exposure experiences occur on autopilot. Our automatic mental shortcuts are making decisions before we consciously choose anything. They study how effects differ by target, timing, valence, type and function, and why the same message lands differently depending on how someone processes and reacts to what they see.
If “did the campaign work” is still a yes-or-no question for your business, you’re missing where the real influence happens — often below the surface, long before it shows up in a metric.
The five-step audit loop these students learn:
- Prepare – Know your goals and what you’re bringing into the analysis before you start.
- Perceive – Notice where a message breaks expectations or stands out.
- Analyze – Figure out which technique caused that break.
- Evaluate – Decide if it’s serving the audience or just the platform.
- Alter – Make the fix.
…works just as well on your own comms as it does on a freshman’s media diet.
PUBR-3770: Social Media Production
This online class is hands-on. Students plan, design and produce the branded content companies run every day working in Adobe Creative Cloud and Canva. This includes short-form video, digital ads, social captions, brand storytelling, and more.
Each student also learns ethical use of generative AI as a tool for ideation and drafting, not a shortcut around the thinking part. (Except for one student. She told me it’s against her ethics to use AI for content creation, which is fine. So I modified the two applicable assignments for her.)
Each student also has to find their own client, and then builds a full content calendar, three short-form reels, a brand story video and a digital ad for this client. This gives them valuable real-world experience.
ADVR-4370: Capstone in Brand Communication
Here, students who are ready to graduate run an actual agency — Buc Brands — for a real client. Their client this semester is the International Storytelling Center in Jonesborough.
Each student takes on one of five roles: account manager, analyst, copywriter, creative director or media planner. The lead account manager is the liaison between Buc Brands and the client.
The class backs every creative decision with research while building a full media plan across paid, earned, shared and owned channels.
At the conclusion of the semester, they present their campaign to the client. What a great experience for these students about to enter the job market. They haven’t just studied brand strategy, but they’ve pitched it, defended it and watched a real client react to it.
Hopefully, they’ll have a great story to tell from this class.
The 3 Big Takeaways
- PR students have a far wider range of communication tools available to use.
- Your PR employee or contractor should be able to do more than make you look good in the news.
- Today’s students should already know how to work like an in-house or contracted agency team, showing unwavering competencies in producing research-backed, client-ready content. They should be unafraid of AI, data, or deadlines.
What skills from this younger PR workforce sound most important for your business? Do share!
Stay authentic — and look for your PR pro to do a lot more than just write press releases!
Jeffery E. Pizzino, APR (seen here in a vintage photo circa 1983 serendipitously doing a Clash impersonation in a since-forgotten location) is a spin-free public relations pro who is passionate about telling the why of your story with clarity, impact and authenticity. He began his PR career in 1987 at Ketchum Public Relations in New York City but has spent the majority of his career as a solopreneur. He’s the Chief Authentic Officer of the Johnson City, TN-based public relations firm, AuthenticityPR. He also functions as the fractional CCO for his clients.
Jeff has an MBA in Management from Western International University and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications — with an emphasis in PR — from Brigham Young University (rise and shout!). He’s also accredited in public relations (APR) and an adjunct media and communication faculty at East Tennessee State University. This Milwaukee, Wisconsin native holds an Italian citizenship and plans to live and work there someday. Jeff and his storyteller wife Leticia have four children and four grandchildren. In his extremely limited nonwork hours, he studies Italiano, practices guitar, writes songs, gardens, works out, disc golfs, reads, listens to New Wave music, serves as an assistant communication director in his church, watches BYU football, enjoys watching the original Mission Impossible TV series, and plays board games (mostly Dominion and Seven Wonders). No, this guy’s never bored and looking for something to do. Email Jeff.
