Public Relations

What do you come out with? BA.

Why do it? Because you want to do lunch at the Groucho club. You emulate Samantha from Sex and the City. You enjoy schmoozing and working the room.

What's it about? It's not just about writng press releases. You need to understand the strategies behind public relations. Courses cover areas like corporate and social responsibility, on-line PR, marketing, advertising, business management and organisational behaviour, communication theory and consumer journalism and broadcast media. At Bournemouth it is compulsory to spend your third year in industry. Not only will you earn a salary during this year, you will gain valuable experience. The University of Central England offers a BA Public Relations and a BA Advertising, Marketing and PR. They offer the opportunity to spend a year in industry. Westminster offer a degree BA Media Studies - Public Relations. This is a media studies degree where you can specialise in PR. UCE offers PR as a joint degree with either human resource management, management, business and business psychology. Central Lancashire has a four year PR degree culminating in a dissertation. In the fourth year, students work for UK Progress, a student run public relations consultancy set up by the university which works with real clients.

How long is a degree? Three years. Four if you do a year in industry.

What are the students like? Predominantly female. At Central Lancashire it is 90 per cent female. Julia Jahansoozi from Central Lancashire says " they are good fun, outgoing, eager and to do well in PR need to be both team players and be able to work individually".

How is it packaged? There are few exams in most courses. At Central Lancashire there are no final exams only in class tests. The majority of the course is a mix between group work, presentations essays and case studies.

How cool is it? If you're working in celebrity or fashion PR, then extremely cool.

What A-levels do you need? Most universities aren't too picky although they like to know you can communicate. They prefer english, psychology, sociology, politics, business studies, law or communication.

What grades? BBB (300 UCAS points) at Bournemouth. UCE want a minimum 200 points. Central Lancashire want 220 points. London Metropolitan want 190 points.

Will you be interviewed? Occassionally at Bournemouth. They run workshops on open days for you to get a feel for the course. Not at Central Lancashire.

Will it keep you off the dole? Senior people can earn £100 000 or more. The starting rates are good. Financial PR is where the money is at.

What do students say? Verity Lowe, 22, BA Public Relations in Central Lancashire. "The course made me want to do it more than ever. In the third and fourth years you go to work for clients in account teams. I really enjoyed the mix of theory and vocational side. The first year was more theory based. It was hard to uinderstand how it applied to the future, but you realise later how useful it is, The theory could be dauntibg at times."

Nick Fishleigh, 21, going into fourth year Bournemouth. "This year is my industrial placement. I am working at Vauxhall motors as a business affairs communications assistant. I have a salary of £15, 100. I am already using what I learnt in the first week of the first year of my degree. I am a creative person so enjoy anything to do with writng. The maths and finance bits were bad. Economics and politics was ineteresting."

Where can you do it? Bournemouth, Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College, University of Central England in Birmingham, Central Lancashire, University College Chester, UHI, Huddersfield, Hull, Leeds Metropolitan, Lincoln, The London Institute, London Metroploitan, Luton, University College Northampton, Queen Margaret University College, Southampton Institute, College of St Mark and St John, Sunderland, Teeside, Thames Valley, Ulster, Westminster, Wolverhamton.

Where's the cutting edge? At Bournemouth it's on-line PR, issues management and corporate and social responsibility. At Central Lancashire they are developing a partner institute in the Netherlands for their student run UK progress consultancy. They are hoping to establish a pan-European consultancy.

Who are the stars? Dr. Kevin Maloney at Bournemouth. Jaqui L'Etang and Magda Pieczka at Stirling. Professor John White at Central Lancashire.

What can you combine it with? Public relations in most commonly partnered with advertising, management and marketing. At UCE you can partner it with business, business psychology, human resources management, management and business law. Ulster offer degrees in government, linguistics, politics, communication or language with PR. TVU combine it with advertising, new media journalism, music technology, digital animation, design for interactive media and digital arts. At Sunderland the list is phenomonal.

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