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Profile
of Kristen Crusan, Intern, Magnet Communications, 12/04
By Brittany Colatrella
PPW Intern
 Kristen
Crusan is a Communications major who has always loved writing. She
was one of the first students to enroll in the Public & Professional
writing program; having the associate director of the program, Pam
O’Brien, as a teacher certainly didn’t hurt. Kristen
was in Pam’s Advertising & Fundraising class, and she
informed Kristen of the PPW program as soon as it began. Kristen
knew the certificate would be a perfect complement to her Communications
degree.
Kristen is grateful for the help and knowledge that our program’s
directors—Jean Grace and Pam O’Brien—provide to
all of their students, and she advises everyone to take advantage
of them as a resource! Kristen knows that the advice Pam O’Brien
has given her over the past two years has helped her succeed in
all of the internships she has had thus far. But Kristen also understands
that the most valuable preparation she gained for subsequent internships
was through her experiences at previous internships: “the
skills you learn hands-on can never compare to what you learn in
the classroom.”
Kristen began her PPW internship experience with a position at the
Make-a-Wish Foundation last spring. Following this, she applied
for a summer internship at Magnet Communications. Unfortunately
all of the summer positions at Magnet were already filled, but this
did not discourage Kristen. Instead, she spent her summer as an
advertising and P/R intern at Blattner & Brunner, and acquired
a position at Magnet for the fall term.
Kristen did all “usual public relations tasks” as part
of her internship at Magnet Communications. This includes researching
for clients, preparing databases with researched information, assisting
with press releases, helping to create briefing books for clients’
trade shows, writing a few pitch letters, and creating a write up
for a “mystery shopping assignment” – this was
Kristen’s most enjoyable assignment. She had to go to local
Charles Schwab offices in order to create a report about the office
and how the staff treated their customers. Kristen used the criteria
that Charles Schwab specified to write an evaluation based on her
experience at the area offices.
Through her experience at Magnet, Kristen made some reliable contacts
that she will be able to utilize in the future. She developed a
wonderful relationship with her supervisor, whom she plans to stay
in touch with. Despite the great people that Kristen got to know
over the semester, the overall experience was less than she had
hoped. However, Kristen just thinks that this is because her position
at Magnet Communication was her third internship of this type.
Kristen feels that she “was becoming bored with the tasks
she was being asked to do.” Although the staff at Magnet relies
on their interns a lot, and everyone expressed appreciation for
the work that Kristen did, this work was not challenging enough
to make the experience 100% satisfying. At least Kristen’s
internship experience has taught her a lot about the type of environment
that she wants to work in: “I didn’t particularly like
working in a large agency atmosphere, like Magnet, and this was
a valuable lesson to learn early on in my professional career.”
In light of this, Kristen is very excited to face a new challenge
as she prepares to begin her career after she graduates in May.
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