Approach your career with passion
Louise Crow
Peritus, Birmingham
Account Coordinator
Every person has different advice on the best way to prepare for your career. Get this internship, join this club, make this grade; but I prefer the “Betsy way.”
While speaking to an Alabama alumni organization about literacy advocacy, I learned that The First Lady of Public Relations Betsy Plank (a University of Alabama graduate) had recently passed and donated her entire estate to the University’s public relations leadership board, The Plank Center. In conjunction with this news, I also had the great fortune of hearing more about Ms. Plank on a more personal level. I discovered she was a collector of memories. Although Betsy was very wealthy, her home proudly featured small tokens from her life experiences with others; Mardi Gras beads dangled from the same jewelry hooks as Chanel necklaces.
Among her many achievements, Betsy was an advocate for the development of the public relations curriculum, the same education which structured the foundation for my career. As a college freshman, I remember hearing her speak and knew that I was witnessing something truly significant. That particular speech represents the last time Ms. Plank ever gave a public speech to her alma mater. I left that room knowing that I would only be guaranteed a successful career in public relations if I approached my profession the “Betsy way,” with passion.
You don’t take the “easy” PR teachers to achieve the 4.0 GPA; you approach your education with a genuine desire to learn more about the profession. You don’t hunt for a big-shot corporate internship to make more summer money; you accept an unpaid internship with a determination to gain as much real-world experience as possible. You don’t join PRSA simply to add to your resume; you join it to foster a sense of community with people who challenge you to become the best version of yourself. At the end of the day, if you don’t believe in your cause, then your profession will provide you nothing more than a paycheck.
When reflecting upon Betsy’s achievements and the number of lives she impacted through her career, my life’s work thus far seems relatively insignificant. However, this lack of experience is accompanied by a deep sense of inspiration and by the voracity to begin my career in public relations guided by the values, hard work and passion that Betsy Plank embodied throughout her sixty-year career.
