PR Schools: Hofstra University & Chapman University
Asked a few experts what is the best school to learn public relations – and here’s some answers.
Diana Bassett, President of Diana Bassett Public Relations said Hofstra University is the best school to learn PR. She said, “Hofstra has both an undergrad and graduate PR department and the program is amazing. Professors are all tenured professionals, many who work for some of the top companies in the world, others run their own successful PR agencies. The education I got was phenomenal, and led me to a place where I felt confident to launch my own firm. Even as an alumni, I still have relationships with the program and professors where I can reach out to them and ask any advice.
In addition to amazing course work, students are given the opportunity for real-life experience due to the contact the school has in the real world, granting amazing internships at the top PR firms in NYC and creating programs where students have the opportunity to create and run their own PR firms right from their classrooms.”
Yuki Klotz-Burwell said, “I recently graduated from Chapman University (located in Orange County, California) with a degree in Public Relations and Advertising. I chose Chapman specifically for its PR program, which is unique because it’s housed in the university’s film and media arts school instead of the communications school.
I graduated from Chapman University in December 2019 and I think that Chapman is underrated. Its program has many professors who are industry professionals, and since Chapman is a small, private university, I was able to create close-knit connections with those professors and get additional knowledge beyond the classroom experience. The professors actually have years of experience in what they’re teaching (many still work in those fields while teaching on the side), and I believe it’s crucial for professors to actually walk the walk.
If anyone is interested in the film or entertainment PR industry, Chapman’s PR program should definitely be on the radar because there’s a lot of integration between the different majors within the film school. For my thesis, I created a public relations and media plan for a student film (film production students create a film as their thesis, so each PR student is paired with a film student). My professor was an industry professional who had experience in public relations, advertising, and filmmaking—he worked at Warner Bros and created the first trailers for the Harry Potter series.
Even if you want to go into an avenue of PR that’s not in the entertainment field, Chapman offers so many relevant classes and experiences. I learned a lot about film + entertainment and decided that I wanted to take a different route. In my time at Chapman, I took classes in media relations, public relations case studies, desktop publishing, press releases + writing for PR, business storytelling, theory + practice of journalism, and more.”
More stories to come on the best schools to study pr.
