How to Become a Public Relations Specialist With a General Studies Degree (2026)

What Does a Public Relations Specialist Do?

A public relations specialist creates and maintains a positive public image for the people, groups or organizations they represent. That's the handbook's one-line version, and the job underneath it is mostly writing and talking. You write press releases and prepare information for the media. You draft speeches for a client's top executives and arrange their interviews. And you evaluate public opinion of the client through social media, so you know whether the image you're building is holding.

Day to day, the writing takes up most of the desk time. The handbook says a public relations specialist must be able to write well-organized and clear press releases, speeches, and social media posts, and each of those is a different kind of writing. A press release has to give a reporter the facts in an order they can use. A speech has to sound like the executive who'll deliver it rather than like you. A social media post has to work in a sentence. If you're the kind of general studies student who wrote for the campus paper or ran a club's accounts, that's the work.

The talking is the part people underestimate. Public relations specialists regularly speak on behalf of clients or their organization, which means you're the voice on the phone when a reporter calls and the person quoted when something goes wrong. That's the hard part of the job. You're accountable for how someone else's words land, and you don't get to step back from that when the news is bad.

Where the job borders others: if you'd rather study the audience than speak to it, the market research analyst guide covers the job that measures what the public thinks instead of shaping it. And if you'd rather raise money than manage a reputation, a fundraiser uses much of the same writing for a different end.

Where Do Public Relations Specialists Work?

Public relations specialists work wherever an organization needs someone to manage its public image, and the biggest single employer in the handbook's breakdown is educational services, at 14 percent of jobs. State, local and private schools and colleges all count in that figure. The handbook counted about 314,500 public relations specialist jobs in 2025, and the two other settings it names are public relations firms and the public relations departments of other businesses, the same places it points to for internships.

Most public relations specialists work full time, and some work more than 40 hours per week. The overtime isn't random. It follows the news, because a story about your client doesn't wait for Monday morning. Plan on evenings and weekends being interruptible, and ask any employer you interview with how often their team works past 40 hours and what happens when a story breaks on a Saturday.

For a general studies graduate, the educational services figure is worth a second look. A college's communications office hires writers who can explain the college to reporters, parents and donors, and you already know how a college works from the inside. It's a natural first employer to look at, and the campus paper or the student affairs office you wrote for is the experience the handbook says some employers prefer.

How Do You Become a Public Relations Specialist With a General Studies Degree?

You become a public relations specialist with a general studies degree by finishing the bachelor's, which the handbook lists as the education needed to enter the occupation, and using the degree's open electives to build the writing samples and experience an employer will ask to see. The handbook describes the degree as one in public relations or another communications field, social science or business, and a general studies degree can carry an emphasis in any of those. What it can't do on its own is prove you can write, so the portfolio does that.

The steps below take you from picking an emphasis through the internship to the job search. Two things the handbook says employers prefer, an internship and evidence of experience through a school newspaper, social media or a leadership role, are things you can do while you're still enrolled, so start them before you graduate rather than after. Certification is not required to enter the occupation, and some employers prefer it, so ask each employer whether it matters to them before you spend money on it.

Is a General Studies Degree Enough to Become a Public Relations Specialist?

A general studies degree is enough to become a public relations specialist on one condition: that it comes with proof that you can write, because the handbook says public relations specialists need a bachelor's degree in public relations or another communications field, social science, or business. The bachelor's requirement is a degree-level gate, and general studies clears it. The field list is looser than it looks, since social science and business are both broad, and a general studies degree with an emphasis in either fits the description.

What employers look for beyond the degree, according to the handbook, is the ability to write well-organized and clear press releases, speeches and social media posts, and the nerve to speak on behalf of the organization. So choose emphasis areas that make you write and present: communications, journalism, English or marketing if your program offers them, with a business or social science block alongside. Ask the program before you enroll which of its courses end in a finished written product, because that's what fills the portfolio the handbook says students build to show employers.

Then add the two things the handbook says employers prefer: an internship at a public relations firm or in a company's public relations department, and experience from a school newspaper, social media, a blog or a leadership role. Neither depends on your major. If you're choosing a program, the bachelor's in general studies rankings compare programs on federal graduation and cost figures, and the online bachelor's rankings cover programs you can finish while holding the internship or a job.

How Much Does a Public Relations Specialist Make in 2026?

A public relations specialist makes a median of $74,750 a year , and most earn between $44,110 to $135,150, the 10th and 90th percentiles, in the May 2025 federal wage survey , which counts 283,380 people in the job. The middle half earn between $56,260 and $100,370, so the median is a midpoint and not an offer.

Pay by state runs from $102,740 in District of Columbia down to $56,730 in West Virginia. The bars below list every state with a published median, highest first, with the number employed there beside each.

Pay for public relations specialists by metro area and by industry, with government against private pay, is in the public relations specialist salary guide.

What Is the Job Outlook for Public Relations Specialists?

The job outlook for public relations specialists is 2 percent projected growth from 2025 to 2035, which the handbook rates slower than the average for all occupations. The growth is small because two forces are pulling against each other. Social media is expected to create new opportunities, since clients need help using those platforms to reach consumers and the public in new ways. But artificial intelligence is making inroads into data-rich social media, and the handbook says that may soften demand for these workers.

A projection is a projection, not a promise, and 2 percent over a decade means the field isn't adding many net jobs: the handbook's figure is 5,700 across the whole period. What it does have is turnover. About 23,000 openings are projected each year on average over the decade, so nearly every opening is a seat someone left rather than a new one. For someone entering now, that means you're competing for a vacated position, and the employer filling it will want the portfolio and the internship rather than a degree title. Enter with both, and pick up the social media skills the handbook says are where the new work is.