The textbook is fallible.

Go ahead. Reread that headline one more time if you need. I know, it was a big shock to me too. After I spent a good two days crafting a PR plan that would make my professors cry tears of joy, my boss called me into her office and told me it was all wrong.

"It's too confusing. Too wordy. Not actionable." I was flabbergasted. The last time I felt that blind-sided was when I found out that Santa doesn't exist. At one point I even sputtered "But...but... this is how I've been doing them all of college." 

As she went through my plan point by point I began to see what she meant. The words looked crowded on the page. My formulaic construction (For XYZ to be a company that is ABC; or, To do X to Y so that they will Z) was in fact passive and convoluted.

How did this happen? Why were our professors leading us astray? After staring at my plan, bleeding with red ink, it hit me: the real world doesn't have text book answers.

In college it's easy to think "I'm going to send a release to this newspaper, get coverage and boost membership for my client" because that's what our professors say works. Sadly, the real world isn't that cut and dry. Of course getting coverage in the media is wonderful but what they don't tell you is that most journalists get so many releases, pitches and emails that they want to slap you, not write a story for you.

The same apparently goes for PR plans. Your professors gave you a formula, complete with a chart with which words are acceptable for objectives, because that's the only way to generally hint out how to plan. In the real world, clients don't have time to read through seven pages filled with 3 paragraph explanations on why you're focusing on certain groups. They want to know what you're going to do, how and when. End of meeting. 

So here I am, staring at my passive voiced plan thinking "Why the hell did I spend all that money on an education?" It seems pretty clear that the real education comes after college in the workplace. 

I guess I better start studying.

A disclaimer: I'm not saying college doesn't give valuable lessons. It does, and without it getting real world experience in PR is almost impossible. All I'm saying is take what your professors say with a grain of salt.