When I started my freshman year of college at the University of Oregon, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I dabbled in a variety of majors from psychology to English to history, and while I found a genuine interest in a lot of these areas, nothing felt quite right. Until I took a public relations course.
I was instantly hooked.
In all honesty, I only took the class because so many friends I looked up to were PR majors. But hey, if the people I have a bunch of things in common with like PR, I probably would too. Normally I’m not one to follow things my friends are doing just because they are — I certainly wouldn’t jump off a bridge just because they were — but I’m so glad I did in this instance.
Then it came time to figure out what I wanted to do with this degree. From the moment I officially declared my public relations major, everyone in my family was asking, “So what are you going to do with that?” For the longest time, I did not have an answer for them. Until right before my senior year.
Once again, I chose to follow what my friends were doing and went on a study abroad trip to London, focusing on PR and advertising. Through this program, my knowledge and passion for PR was fueled exponentially. Not only was I learning so much about global communications, through this program I got to visit some of the top PR agencies in London.
This is where The Hoffman Agency enters my story.
About three weeks into the program, I got to visit the Hoffman London office and meet the incredible team. I spent the day learning about the work they do and quite literally did not understand a single word of what the team was saying. I was familiar with technology in the sense that my first phone was an iPhone, and my high school gave us all Chromebooks to use. I certainly had no concrete understanding of how any of this worked, let alone how to communicate these concepts to a wide audience. Despite my confusion on the jargon the Hoffman team was using, I was still so intrigued by their work.
After our visit, the team invited us to get to know them a bit more. During this conversation, I got to know so much about the Hoffman culture. The team was fun and engaging but still had a clear passion and dedication to their work. It was at the end of this day that I decided what I wanted to do with my PR degree: work for an agency like Hoffman.
When I got home, I immediately began researching the agency and realized that they had an office right in my hometown of Portland. Around the same time, one of my friends who inspired me to go into PR began working for Hoffman as well. It felt serendipitous.
I waited and waited for the Summer 2024 intern application to be released, and I filled it out almost the second it was open.
It’s not always the best idea to do things just because your friends are. But now three weeks into this internship, I’m confident that freshman year Sophie made a good choice by following her friends into the world of PR.
