Serious, substantial studies

Only two years ago, I found that celebrity endorsement was a fashionable topic for undergraduate dissertations. It’s an important subject, but difficult to turn into a valuable academic study and unlikely to impress potential employers.

This year’s topics are more substantial. Here are a few that I’ve been assessing:

• The impact of RSS on media relations
• A study into the effectiveness of two recent anti-smoking campaigns
• The role of public relations in promoting start-up businesses
• The value of a PR education in career development terms
• Is there another glass ceiling, preventing young men from applying to study PR?
• A study into how PR consultancies use their websites to recruit graduates
• A study into the connection between the communications audit and PR strategy

It’s too easy to sound like the old shepherd in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale…

I would there were no age between sixteen and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest; for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting.

… So I’m happy to give this generic praise to our final year students, and to offer thanks to those of you who contributed ideas (knowingly or unknowingly), and completed questionnaires to help with this process.