The dissertation is finally done and submitted! I cannot tell you how happy I am, and also how relieved! The last three months of my life were basically invaded by this piece of work… Nevertheless, I’m quite satisfied with what I’ve done and I’m already anxious to know the results; however I’ll have to wait till July.

So, as you can see from the photo, the topic of my dissertation was “The Impact of Social Media on the Public Relations Industry.” This issue has been around for a few years now and has been researched before too, but because of the very nature of social media, namely always changing, I believe it is necessary for this matter to be studied on a very regular basis. Most importantly though working on this project helped me gain a vast knowledge into the PR practice, which from a personal perspective is extremely valuable, because I am not a PR student, but a business student, who is pursuing a public relations career. So, now I am a lot more familiar not only with a number of theories relevant to the communications practice, but with the industry itself now and before the emergence of social media. Also I had the chance to meet and get to know some experienced PR professionals and certainly made a few good connections.

The research methods I chose were a survey and in-depth interviews. I also distributed the questionnaire link on various LinkedIn groups asking practitioners to participate and many of them wanted to know the final results. As I promised, I will post the survey findings as well as some of the interviews here, but only after the dissertation has been graded (I know, I can’t wait either).  

To be honest, I was a little bit scared at the beginning of my research; I did have to work very hard and miss a few parties from time to time, but now after I have learned so much, I know it was absolutely worth it and I’m well prepared for my second BA dissertation next year – yes, second, that’s what Double Award students do, write 2 dissertations just to get their BA degree.

Are you also writing a dissertation now? What are your experiences with it? Or if you have submitted a dissertation a few years back, what did you learn?