During my four years at St. Norbert College pursuing a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications with a focus in Media. I have expanded my knowledge on different aspects of communication which classes I took helped me get to where I am today.
- Interpersonal Communication
- Mass Communication
- Comm Tech Social Change
- Nonverbal Communication
- Gender and Media
- Strategic Communication
- Research Methods
- Health Communication
- Television Criticism
- Political Communication
- Mass Communication Theory
Of these 11 classes, some that really stuck with me were Comm Tech Social Change, Gender and Media, and Strategic Communication. These classes tied in very close with what I want to do with my future which is a Strategic Marketing Consultant. I want to figure out how messages are effective including when to send out messages, what they should look like, and what is the best method to send out messages. To be a student of communication and media studies means that you can interrupt information and present it to people in a way that they also understand it. My focus on Media means that I have spent the majority of my four years targeting how can I address people outside of internal circles. I learned how to communicate with people outside of my organization through social media or other tactics including how a message is presented to people. Looking at my best works that I did as well as with groups, I focused a lot on how women are treated and viewed and it has opened my eyes even future than what I originally thought. Giving me the courage and background to not follow the social norm or not expect a lot from women.
Throughout my four years here at St. Norbert College I have participated in both critical and social scientific research. Critical research that I have done is where I focus on the information presented and take statistics. In my research paper that I did on The Crown, I look at how the queen is more masculine than the male. I also wrote a lot throughout my four years about how women are viewed and treated. I wrote research about Wonder Woman was viewed, then there was another paper where I wrote about how women in higher management are viewed. Social scientific research I have participated in include a nonverbal observational study with a group where we went to a local coffee shop and watched how people interacted with the space and the surrounding that they are in. This study really enlightened me about how people interact with each other when they don’t realize that they are being watched. You can see people’s real-life interactions and reactions to what is happening around them. I also did a group project where we looked into how college students use social media.
Since June 2022 I have been a Marketing and Communications at a Minnesota company, Viracon. During my internship there I have been working on my communication and marketing skills outside the classroom. I create introductory videos to explain the tools and systems that we have in place. Creating these videos at first made me nervous as I had to create voiceovers and I knew that 100s of people could watch and see what I created, but becoming more comfortable with that allows me to be more confident in my ability to communicate and create videos. I have also been creating a monthly newsletter to share with around 500 people, improving my written communication skills. I have begun to step outside my comfort zone with my internship, as I am on a team of two so I have a lot of responsibility for what I do and create. I am also able to communicate with viewers of the videos and newsletter to see what they enjoy and what they would like to see in the future, like is boosting my interpersonal skills and well as mass communication when I create the videos and distribute them.
