Sha-Lene Pung and her mentee, Nathalia Tavares, spurned pressure to pursue a STEM field. Instead, they’re mastering the art of communication, and they’re getting industry training right on campus.
Story by: Holden Slattery
Sha-Lene Pung took leaps of faith when she decided to pursue two communications degrees rather than a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) discipline. The government in Pung’s native Malaysia announced last year that it aims for 60 percent of its young people to enter these fields. Even before that, Pung saw many parents directing their kids toward STEM.
“Asian families commonly don’t encourage their kids to go into fields like communications,” Pung said.
However, STEM didn’t appeal to Pung, whose favorite activity was always writing. She shared that skill with the public when she began running her own entrepreneurial blog.
In Malaysia, many young women have “blog shops,” where they advertise and sell clothing and other goods that they purchase from local markets. Pung started a blog to highlight and review these blog shops. She called it Your Shopping Kaki. The word “kaki” means leg in Malay, and “shopping kaki” is a colloquialism similar to shopaholic.
She built a strong online following, and eventually, she had advertisers and clients who paid her to write reviews of their blog shops. Realizing it was effective public relations (PR) that fueled her success, she decided to obtain a formal PR education by getting her Master in Strategic Public Relations from the USC Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism.
One of Pung’s main reasons for choosing USC was the presence of TriSight Communications, a public relations firm staffed entirely by USC students. TriSight was founded in 2003 to provide nonprofit and small business clients with strategic planning services and campaigns that showcase their businesses and communicate with their stakeholders. This organization gives students a chance to work with real clients and apply the principles they learn in their communications classes.
The 200-person group comprises an international mix. TriSight’s seven-person executive board includes student leaders from China, Brazil, England, and Canada. Their clients include
the USC School of Cinematic Arts, the Viterbi School of Engineering, the Malibu Foundation for Ocean Protection, and Yuru—a mobile app that allows users to get advice via crowdsourcing. TriSight members create press kits with press releases, social media plans, and more. The charges they bill clients each semester go toward the organization’s operations and events.
Pung served as co-president of TriSight, stepping down when the new executive board took over in December. One of her legacies was helping form a mentor-mentee program. Because members can do much of the work individually, the group’s leaders perceived a lack of personal connection. After starting this program, Pung served as a mentor to sophomore Nathalia Alves Tavares, who is now TriSight’s Vice President of External Relations.
Tavares was born in Brazil, moved to Mexico at age nine, and then moved to China at age 15. As globetrotting computer engineers, Tavares’ parents made sure that she mastered English because it would allow her to communicate everywhere. But they always knew Tavares was more “into artsy, creative things” than hard science.
In China Tavares was working toward a singing career, but she eventually felt “performance overload.” In high school she began directing and producing theatrical performances, and she realized that she preferred working behind the scenes in entertainment.
By working at TriSight, Tavares hopes she will earn the skills she needs for a career in PR and marketing. In her executive board role, she is making progress on recruiting new members and signing new clients. Tavares has also started mentoring another TriSight member, and she’s enjoyed sharing her knowledge about PR, just like Pung shared key insights with her.
Tavares realizes that for an international student, finding a job in the U.S. is quite challenging, especially in the communications field. But she’s optimistic that her hands-on experience and constant networking will pay off.
“As an international student, you have to take a much more aggressive approach to finding a job,” she said. “You have to be bold and just go for it.”
Sha-Lene Pung (left) and Nathalia Alves Tavares (right)
Holden Slattery, Assistant Communications Editor, is pursuing a Master of Public Administration and is from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.