Alyssa Williamson is a junior at Simmons majoring in Public Relations and Marketing Communications with minors in Retail Management and Entrepreneurship. You might know her around campus for her stylish outfits, being the co-president of Her Campus Simmons or the great internships she’s had. By the start of her third year she has already completed four internships in varied fields within communications.
She completed her first two internships the summer after her freshman year of college. They were both located in Los Angeles, where Alyssa is from. The first was with an online fashion publication called WhoWhatWear.com, and the other was at an entertainment PR firm called Platform PR. At Who What Wear Alyssa worked as an Editorial Intern. There, she conducted both product and celebrity/street style photo research, as well as utilized Photoshop to edit product images for different articles. At Platform PR, Alyssa assisted a small team with general PR work such as editing pitches to media outlets, organizing press folders and updating media contact lists.
During the spring semester of her sophomore year, Alyssa worked as a Marketing/Events Intern at Boston Magazine. Here she worked with the marketing team to create and maintain prospect guest lists for industry events, as well as assisted at those events herself. This past summer Alyssa lived abroad in Israel and interned at a small clothing brand called Flatter Boutique in Jerusalem. Here she wrote copy for social media posts and blog posts and helped set up an Ecommerce site for the company.
Photo courtesy of Alyssa Williamson
Alyssa says she landed most of her internships simply by networking. “When people say it’s all about who you know, they aren’t wrong. I’m a part of the Communications Liaison here on campus, and by attending our networking events and meeting alumni, I build a strong network of people who were willing to help me,” she says. “It’s also important to maintain relationships with your peers and upperclassmen. I found one of my internships through an older classmate in the club!”
She thinks that what helped her prepare most for these internships was the experience that the Simmons Public Relations and Marketing classes have given her. “In ‘Writing for PR’, I learned how to write both pitches and blog posts, and in ‘Intro to Advertising’ and ‘Graphic Design,’ I learned how to use Adobe programs like Photoshop and InDesign,” she says. “Other classes in the Communications and Management Departments have taught me to be more organized and how to work with other people, which will generally help at any internship!”
A final piece of advice for freshman in Communications or Management: “Start as early as possible. You gain so much insight on not only your field, but yourself! The more you know and the better prepared you are, the more likely you are to get hired by a great company when you graduate.”