Ever since I strayed from my early-age desires to be a bus driver, I’ve struggled with knowing what I actually want to do “when I grow up.” So frequently I would be asked, and every time I would feel defeated when I wasn’t sure. Years passed and the older I got, the more pressure I felt to have it all figured out. I came into college undecided anyways, but always had communication and media studies in my back pocket as a potential major due to my older sister having studied it at UW Madison. In my sophomore year here at St. Norbert, I decided to go forward with communication and media studies as my major and have been rewarded in so many ways since.

Through my communication and media studies courses, I have learned the preparatory material for careers in mass media, public relations, and marketing, all of which I have already done work with in the professional world. Aside from the media content that I rely on with my internships, St. Norbert’s communication program has given me strong general communication skills, including advertising, politics, public speaking, technology, and more. Although rigorous at times (as anyone would expect), I greatly appreciate that the program requires students to take such a variety of communication courses. From communication media law to business and professional speaking, to television criticism, to writing for media, I have been able to experience academic growth in more ways than I ever would have imagined coming into St. Norbert.

As a student with a media emphasis, I have been fortunate enough to work as an intern for Swimming World Magazine as a journalism intern as well as for Green Bay Botanical Garden with internships in marketing and communication and guest experience. The communication and media studies department helped me in carrying out all three of these, regardless of a lack of similarity between them. My writing skills were heightened for my journalism internship, thanks especially to my communication research methods and writing for media classes. For my guest experience internship, I was well suited thanks to my interpersonal communication, intercultural communication, and business and professional speaking courses, all of which helped me with personal interactions. As for my marketing and communication internship, I was helped mostly by academic projects I have done over the years that involved camera work, social media, writing and graphic design applications.

Another thing I’ve appreciated with my communication and media studies classes is their encouragement towards the usage of scholarly sources. Whether it’s doing a research project, writing a paper, or just doing an assignment, using scholarly sources has always been a requirement. Engaging with the library database has been my biggest go-to when doing my own research, and I have become a much stronger critical thinker from it. Beyond electronic scholarly sources though, I have read many textbooks written by experts that have expanded my thinking especially.

After graduation, I’m looking to work as a public relation specialist, marketing specialist, content writer, or community organizer in Delaware. I’ve had positive experiences doing work related to and including all of these positions, but my biggest priority is to find an organization whose mission looks to help people who need it and actually make a difference in society. Outside the classroom, I’ve best been prepared for this kind of work thanks to my internships and family. My sister has been a great resource the past few years, especially with internship and job searches due to her extensive background in communication and media studies. As my academic career comes to a close, I can’t help but be thankful for the experiences I’ve had with the communication and media studies department and am thrilled to see what happens next.