Lauren's Fall Workshop Experience

Although nearly a month and a half has passed since I attended the fall workshop in Boston, I still can't stop thinking about the amazing experiences I had with my team members and the other EcoCar 2 teams. As a brand new member of the Purdue EcoMaker team, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I had only been on the team for a little over a week before I was off to Boston. Once I landed, I was greeted by Jose, our business manager, and we took a nice little adventure to the train station. We took the train to Natick and finally made it to the hotel. This is when the fun began! I met up with the team and attended the meet and greet that night. Immediately I hit it off with the Rose Holman team and we made plans to hang out later that night! The rest of the week was filled with Communication Workshops where I received basic PR training, media training, instruction on how to use a video camera and edit video footage, as well as other basic communications training.  

During the PR training we received a basic guide to successful public relations. This included learning the difference between advertising and public relations, the “do’s and don’ts” of working with the media as well as a glossary of common public relations terms. During the media training, we met one on one with media professionals and learned all about how to get the media involved in EcoCAR as well as the best way to set up interviews with them. Afterwards, we participated in a mock interview where we were videotaped and were able to watch our interview afterwards. This gave us a lot of feedback and was extremely helpful. During our video training we were supplied with a basic hand held video camera where we were taught the basic functions of how to use the camera. After the instruction we had an hour to walk around and practice different filming techniques and then met back up with the group and viewed everyone’s film. This also provided helpful feedback. 

This workshop and all the training I was able to participate in was extremely helpful and gave me skills that I will use for the rest of my career in PR. In addition to this it gave me the opportunity to represent Purdue and grow as a member of Purdue EcoCAR and was an amazing four-day experience. I will never forget the friends I made and I absolutely cannot wait to reconnect with everyone at the winter workshop in January!