Bringing Learning to Life: A Students’ Take on Storyworks course

By Samantha White, Class of ’17

I can safely say that Storyworks is not like any class I have taken before. The amount of real-life client work I have been fortunate enough to work on is preparing me for my career, and I am thankful for that. I entered the CCPR program with a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies. I have passion for the environment. As you can imagine, I was thrilled to learn that my client for Storyworks would be Canadian Parks Council (CPC)

It might sound surprising to hear, but never did I imagine when I enrolled in the CCPR program that I would be doing work for actual clients. I remember this past summer, the bus stop close to my house featured an advertisement for Centennial College. The theme of the advertisement: Bringing learning to life. I have to admit I didn’t grasp the true meaning of the campaign until I started attending classes. Storyworks continues to represent a college that brings learning to life. Preparing for client meetings, practising to present to the client, actually presenting to the client and now collaborating with the them to ensure a campaign that CPC wants; learning is being brought to life.

I am also enjoying the guest speakers. It is one thing to have a roster of instructors with real life experience, but the stories end up being repeated. By binging in guest speakers with new and relevant experience, we as the students are able to broaden our horizon and learn about the many different streams that PR and corporate communication can take. I am finding the ability to ask questions of the guest speakers beneficial as well.

I am very impressed with the concept of Storyworks. As I mentioned above, this is an innovative class with a progressive structure. I think that Centennial is going in the right direction by encouraging engagement between students and clients. Hands-on learning has been proven to yield better results when it comes to one day applying learned knowledge. Being able to apply my experience and knowledge gained through receiving my environmental studies degree has defined me as a student. I never thought that I would be able to have two passions in life. And I never thought that I would be able to mesh both environmental studies and PR together. However, with Storyworks, I have been able to let me true colours as a student and an individual shine.

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