The Polish Public Relations Consultancies Association (PPRCA) celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2020. Therefore, we decided to conduct a joint survey on its peers (the age group of 19–26-year-old participants). As the group of our respondents, we chose peers of the PPRCA from among the students of the public relations specialization at the Faculty of Journalism, Information and Book Studies of the University of Warsaw, as well as young employees of the agencies associated with the PPRCA. In late November and early December 2020, we conducted a survey using the CAWI method on a group of 130 respondents. Our objectives were, among others: to define the respondents’ understanding of professionalism in the PR industry, to find out their attitudes towards the PR industry in Poland, and to outline the potential career path of twenty-year-olds in the public relations industry. This paper focuses on the aspects of professional education, raising the level of professionalism and ethics, as well as the approach to gaining qualifications in internships.
Keywords: public relations, twenty-year-olds, perception, image, the PR industry, ethics, education