Top London PR Agency run workshop at BU

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Leading London PR Agency Bell Pottinger ran a workshop at Bournemouth University (BU) aiming to give students an insight into the PR industry and assist them with their studies.

James Gater, Associate Partner at Bell Pottinger lead the first hour of the workshop, which focused on the Science of PR. Gater said he wanted students to understand that “the concept of public relations is a hybrid combination of head and heart”.

Gater, who studied PR at BU said, “I thoroughly enjoyed my time at BU. The thing it has above other universities is that it has a very practical and pragmatic approach to education, and focused firmly on getting people employment”.

Luke Chauvaeu, Partner at Bell Pottinger drew upon his extensive industry experience, leading the second presentation of the session focusing on ‘the guts’ of PR. Chauvaeu said “I’ve been entertained and had a very engaging team of people in terms of this afternoon’s lecture. Everyone’s been welcoming!”

After the presentations the students were set an interactive pitching activity, aimed to prepare them for the working world of PR and increase their professional presentation skills.

Dr John Oliver, Associate Professor of Media Management at BU said, “Hopefully the day has given students a chance to showcase their talents and exposure to a top agency. We have seen really high quality work from students today”.

Pippa Chester, a final year student at BU who took part in the session, said, “It’s really good to have people from a top communications agency. It says a lot about the course that they’ve come to Bournemouth.”

Hilary Stepien, Programme Leader of PR at BU said that she hopes “people will take away knowledge that there is a whole world of PR out there beyond consumer stuff. We would love to have them back again next year as the session would benefit any PR student at any level of their studies”.

Dyson visit BU engineering students

The James Dyson Foundation visited Bournemouth University and gave students a unique insight into the daily operations at Dyson.

Kristian King, graduate design engineer at Dyson led the talk discussing sketching, prototyping, manufacturing and other areas of their design process.

King said, “The main aim of today is to show students what it’s like to work for Dyson and what it takes to design a product of high performance.”

After the talk the Dyson team held a workshop where students were set a design challenge. “Students will design a product that uses a motor to suck or blow air. It gets young engineers thinking outside the box and gets them to feel like they’re working at Dyson,” said King.

“The reason we came to Bournemouth is because we know they have a high calibre of engineers. We also hope to encourage [today’s] first year students to consider Dyson in future.”

The James Dyson Foundation awards scholarships to university students studying science, technology, engineering, product design or maths.

Ross James, a fourth year student on the Design Engineering course at BU was recently awarded one of these bursaries. The bursaries are worth £1000 funding to build prototype products as part of their course. “It’s really good because prototype costs can be expensive for us as students,” said James.

For more information about the scholarships visit the James Dyson Foundation website.