When coming to SNC, I put myself on a path and I didn’t know where it was leading. Although I came in as a business major, I quickly decided to switch to communication and accidentally picked up the media studies emphasis, not knowing what media even was. If someone were to ask me to explain the word “media,” I would’ve shrugged and said something along the lines of, “social media is a thing.” I had obviously heard the word before, but it was such a broad topic that I didn’t fully understand until taking Mass Communication (COME 124). In that class, I connected different forms of media that we interacted with daily.
The different classes I took allowed me to view media in many different ways. From very technical classes like writing for media and media relations, where we learned how to write press releases and news stories, to classes like Gender and Media, that forced me to think critically on how gender is communicated through various mediums and the effects it has on viewers and even society. These classes offer so many different pieces to the puzzle that is communication and media
In the Fall of 2018, I got the opportunity to work in the St. Norbert office of communications as the social media intern, where I work under the schools marketing professionals to take on several different projects from updating the school website, to making GIFs, to taking pictures of campus squirrels, to my favorite project, Humans of St. Norbert (HOSN). Similar to Humans of New York, Humans of St. Norbert gives prospective students and parents, alumni, and even students insight to the campus by posting a headshot and a quote from interviews I conduct. Through this project, I got to talk to people about everything from growing up on a goat farm to donating a kidney to a childhood best friend. This project really made me fall in love with the storytelling aspect of social media.
Though I still work in my Office of Communications internship, I also took on two other internships with Baer Performance Marketing (BPM) and the Greater Green Bay Chamber. As a marketing intern at BPM, I learned a lot about general marketing tools like SEO and the importance of blog writing, and I even got to write a TV and Radio script for Sam Dekker. I also got to create social media calendars, posts, and cover photos for multiple businesses. As far as Greater Green Bay Chamber, I get to write press releases and feature stories on local businesses.
To list everything I learned the last four years in an essay is impossible. However, the technical and personal skills I learned while being a communication and media studies student go beyond just knowing what to post on social media. Media is in it’s least complex form, communicating. Where do I go now? I don’t know. Like several others in this major, I will probably go the social media marketing direction. But wherever I end up, I know that I am going to continue engaging in my love for visual media whether it’s freelance photography, graphic design, or video content creation.