Our New Intern Cameron Ventures Into A Life Of PR

Let me introduce myself.

My name is Cameron Whitaker and I’d first like to say how excited I am to be a part of the Ketner Group team this semester! As far as school goes, I’m in my last semester at the University of Texas at Austin, graduating with a degree in Broadcast Journalism this May.

I’m grateful to be here at Ketner Group but how I ended up here wasn’t the smoothest path. In the last year I’ve gone from wanting to be the lead anchor at a top news station, to going through what I’d call a “late-college crisis”.  After seeing the real world of news and journalism, I realized the fast-paced, early morning, late night, environment just wasn’t for me. It took a lot of soul searching over the summer, but I took a leap of faith and expanded my career goals.

Last summer I got a little ambitious and took on two vastly different internships. By day, I worked as a media intern at the Texas House of Representatives. That was fast paced on a different level, dealing with laws and legislation, rallies, protests, and making sure my representative always said the right thing at the right time. It’s a touchy business, but I had a great time coordinating events, writing speeches, press releases and so much more.

By night (or afternoon I guess), I worked at the Texas headquarters of AARP as a mass communications intern. Talk about slow paced. I spent a lot of my time there staying on top of the newest initiatives affecting people more than twice my age but it was completely worth it. I had the opportunity to edit and write a lot of opinion- based content that went out to the state for the company. I even had a huge hand in helping create a video infomercial where I got to show off my broadcast skills. Both of these offices taught me valuable media skills that I’ve brought with me to Ketner Group.

But enough about my professional side.  Personally, I’ve experienced about all there is to in college in four years. I’m a huge Texas football fan, no matter how bad the games get– I live for college football on Saturdays. Outside of that I spend about 80% of my time with a great group of guys involved with Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Inc. Being this year’s president, I’ve definitely put in more work than I’d like but all the parties, events, and random foolishness make it all worth it. So yeah, you can call me a frat guy. Other than that, I’m a guy that likes to dress -on a budget, so thrifting is a habit. I try to stay up to date on the latest music being that I love R&B and hip-hop. And whenever I stop being lazy, I’ll work out here and there.

All that said, in May I’ll be walking the stage and starting a new part of my life. I genuinely think I’m headed in the right direction by pursuing a career in PR and marketing. I’m excited to work on accounts with multiple clients, and I think the folks at Ketner Group will prepare me with the skills I’ll need to be successful. I always said I was better at real life than school stuff anyway.