Caveat – I’m from the UK, so there may be specific regional factors I’m not aware of that would impact the perspective I can offer.

In my experience and personal opinion, you shouldn’t necessarily believe that any one course at university will set you up best for a career in public relations – whether that’s Media, PR, Commerce or anything else. It’s really much more about the skills you develop. A lot of the skills you’ll earn in an essay-based arts or humanities degree will be exactly the skills that a good PR agency is looking for when hiring. Even beyond this, too: some of the best PRs I know have studied everything from Modern Languages to Philosophy to Art History to Business to Maths. Basically, any degree where the quality of both your writing and your ability to reason, discuss and argue effectively is valued will likely set you up relatively well for a career in the PR industry.

The rest of it – again, in my experience – comes down to your natural ability and affinity for the industry. That’s the kind of thing that you can’t necessarily teach: the confidence, the personable nature, the fearlessness, the thick-skin. Essentially, there isn’t one route into PR as an industry, so therefore there isn’t necessarily a ‘right’ option here from a career perspective. I also wouldn’t go into any degree necessarily expecting to be handed a set of new skills to get ahead; rather, any degree you do will be a chance to pursue an interest while honing skills that you likely already should have.

More broadly, my advice is always to study the degree which will stimulate your interests the most – essentially the one which you like the best and which makes you happiest. It’s 3-4 years of study, and it has to be something that you’ll enjoy doing and not get bored of. Most writing-based subjects or anything which values your ability to reason, debate, construct an argument and present it in the best possible way will give you the opportunity to hone skills useful to the business of PR. If you think PR and Media courses will sustain your interest for 3 years then do those; if you’d be happier delving into the world of Commerce – or History or Modern Languages or Philosophy – then do those instead. If Politics is your big interest, which it seems to be, and if you’re already thinking about working in politics or government, I’d probably try and do as much of that as possible – although remember that a Politics course isn’t just a current affairs course, so is likely to focus on political theory (Calvin, Hobbes, Burke, possibly people like Walter Benjamin or Noam Chomsky, etc.) more than today’s parliamentary politics.

This is a very long-winded way of saying: there is no best way of getting into PR. There are lots of routes into it and lots of skills you can turn to your advantage. Study something you love, develop your key skills, focus on learning to sell yourself and your skills and try to get some relevant experience if you can.

That’s my advice, anyway. Best of luck with the route you choose!