Grad focuses on connecting people
From international relations to public relations, Alliancé Babunga is all about building bridges, as her name suggests. She credits SFU’s Public Relations Certificate for giving her the courage to make a career transition.
Alliancé finished a bachelor’s in international relations with dreams of becoming an international diplomat. After exploring her passion for people and politics by taking on multiple volunteer and internship opportunities across all levels of Canadian government, she eventually found herself curious about a different career direction.
“I knew that I loved working with people and enjoyed writing, so when I learned about PR it seemed like a field I would thrive in,” she says.
When Alliancé attended an info session for the Public Relations program, she heard instructor Kylie McMullan speak about her experience in the field, and she became convinced that transitioning into a PR career would be the right next step.
Alliancé’s program cohort was the first to take the program entirely online, and while it was initially challenging to adapt to virtual learning in real time, she soon formed meaningful connections with her instructors and classmates.
“Even though my classes were online, it was great to be learning and experiencing everything with everyone at the same time,” she recalls. “It really created a bond between us.”
She also benefited from the real-world experience and mentorship at her virtual practicum with the agency Switchboard PR, and wrote about her experience for the agency’s blog. Since completing the program, Alliancé landed a consulting role as the marketing and community manager at Crisis Ready® Institute, where she learned about crisis management and put her leadership, communication, and stakeholder engagement skills into practice. She’s currently an account executive with an international PR agency, Citizen Relations, sharpening her media relations expertise.
Her favourite aspect of PR? It allows her to continue doing what she loves: working with people and nurturing professional relationships between parties.
“My name is a connector—it means alliance, and I’m building bridges,” she says. “Maybe I was always meant to be the middle person forming connections between people, and I’m doing that through PR.”
By Bernice Puzon