CQUniversity's Office of Development and Graduate Relations enlisted the aid of the University's Advanced Public Relations students to organise a networking event to reconnect communication graduates and celebrate their achievements.

The Advanced PR students‘ project forms part of their assessment which focuses on the University being connected with past communication students.

CQUniversity lecturer Kenneth Clark considers this project to be a unique learning experience for the current communications students - allowing them to step out of the theoretical based project mode and to plan and manage a real Public Relations campaign.

"By enlisting current communications students to organise this event, the Office of Development and Graduate Relations has given students a marked advantage over other students within theory based courses," Mr Clark said.

"It gives our students the opportunity to deal with a real life campaign, with real life challenges. They have to justify their budget, write media releases and revise their strategies during implementation."

Advanced PR student, Lilian Hare confirms that there have been many challenges along the way, but they continue to be keen and work towards making the networking event for communication graduates a success.

"It's a big wake up call. We didn't realise how much work would be involved. The biggest challenge has been locating graduates as the only contact details that we have on record are those that were current while they attended CQUniversity," says Lilian.

The pinnacle of the project will be the semi-formal networking event to be held on Saturday, September 27, at the Heritage Hotel, commencing at 7pm.

If you have graduated from CQUniversity's communication programs and wish to attend or obtain more information, please contact Michelle Roberts on 4923 2898 or email graduate-enquiries@cqu.edu.au.