Ashley Putman

Hey everyone!  I am finally going to graduate this fall!  I am majoring in Public Relations and minoring in Psychology.  I spent the spring semester in a little town on the beach in Costa Rica.  It was the most amazing, eye-opening experience of my life.  I was really unhappy to return home, and thought I could live on the beach forever.  I spent the summer with my parents and younger sister in Denton.  It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought.  My sister is a massage therapist, and I cooked every day for my family.  Cooking was my first love.  From the time I was five, I was in the kitchen with a mixing bowl and spoon.  As I got older I began wanting to share my tasty treats with others.  This always resulted in my parents inviting over their friends for dinner, and finally I was able to present whatever concoction I had brewed up.  My focus changed from just cooking to hosting.  Let me jump to how I was introduced to PR.

In the spring of my freshman year I went to work for a privately owned extreme sports facility.  I was hired on for Marketing and PR, or at least that is what my name tag said.  Really my job was to travel around to different events and promote the company I worked for.  The summer brought thousands of people to the Texas Ski Ranch.  My boss put a halt on the "travel team," so that we could help out during the busy season.  I organized fashion shows, events, meetings with sales reps, private parties, and so much more that my head was spinning.  It didn't matter to me, because I loved what I did.  I was later moved to the pro shop to work in sales at a higher position.  I will just tell you sales is not my thing, unless I love the product.  There were often times where my boss had to tell me that I couldn't just sell wakeboards from this one specific company.  I quickly figured out that sales weren't for me.  

It came time to declare a major, and I was lost.  I didn't realize that all the work I had done for the two years at TSR could translate into PR.  My boss brought this all to my attention, and it clicked.  So, I have been studying PR ever since and absolutely love and value everything I have learned.  My goal is to go into event coordinating, whether it be corporate or private.  I am really excited about this class, because I feel that it is going to help me bring something more to the table.  It might even become a hobby.