The more I move around in the field of PR, the more I find it permeating all areas of my life. This occurred to me earlier week during a conversation with a friend. She was telling me about a problem she had getting a particular group of young people to consistently attend a program she was in charge of, and even though I was in a setting unrelated to school or work, I found myself wanting to ask her if she had segmented her target audiences and approached each segment differently. Luckily I was able to stop myself before the words came out of my mouth. In retrospect maybe it wasn’t that lucky for her, as I suspect a segmented approach may actually solve her problem.
The incident reminded me of a fellow classmate who told me she has had a similar experience with CP Style, so much so that on msn messenger she finds herself typing in CP Style. Does this mean that we have been unable to separate work and life? Or does it just mean that we have finally begun to develop the mindset of the PR practitioners that we are trying so hard to be?
I can relate — yesterday, I found myself complying to CP Style while writing a post-it note to myself.
Our PR training has definitely changed our perception and perspective of the world around us.
Absolutely! I find myself inquiring about target audiences too, and applying key messages. Isn’t that what life’s about…key messages?
I think we’ll be very astute interns! 
You made me a superstar, Rhonda! Haha.
This can only be a good thing. We don’t know what we’ll be like when we start working a PR job full time, but we’re already getting into the habit of thinking like a practitioner does. There’s no way that kind of train of thought can be turned off. But, our mouths can. We just need to know when to let our thoughts be only that.
One of the nice things about studying in a program that embraces corporate communications and PR is that the acquired attributes can be used anywhere. Few skills are more transferable than communication ones!
Thinking strategically or writing to a standard style do become unconscious activities. So, two fewer things to worry about