Graduating

I can’t believe I am graduating in about 10 days. I feel like I just got here. The time that I have been here seems so short, but looking back on the last few years I realize that a lot has happened. After declaring my major as Journalism & Broadcasting and starting classes, I knew that this is what I wanted to do. I am proud to say that I never changed my major. I have learned so much over the last four years, not only through school, but through life lessons in general. I believe that college is the time when people really grow up and learn a lot about themselves.

I am so happy I came to OSU. It was completely out of my comfort zone because I came from Houston not knowing anyone. Right away, I made great friends and continued to meet so many people that I will be friends with forever. It will be extremely sad to not be living in Stillwater, being on campus and seeing all of the great people I have met over the years. I know for sure that I will be coming back as an alum to go to football games and other events.

The college of Arts & Science commencment is at 1 pm on May 8th. It all won’t be real to me until I walk across the stage. I am moving back to Houston to intern at an ad agency called Marion Montgomery Inc. I am hoping that this can turn into a full time position. While I am going to be very sad for a long time after grauation, I am excited to see what my future holds.

AAF-NSAC Results

Two weeks ago we finally competed in the American Advertising Federation- NSAC Competition. This took place in Amarillo, TX at the District Convention for the professionals. There were close to twenty teams competing in two different competitions. In our group there were many great teams. We presented at 8:30 am and nailed it. We were so excited that everything went well and we aced the questions and answers section.

This is the team post presentation.

Throughout the day each student had the opportunity to watch all of the other schools presentations. It was so interesting to see what each school came up with over the past year. There were lots of great presentations and then there were some that were not as developed as others.

In the end we ended up getting second place overall, which we were all pleased with. Even though we would have liked to go to the national competition, we were just glad we got recognized for all of our hard work. This experience was truly amazing and I learned so much that will benefit me forever.

AAF-NSAC

On Wednesday April 14th the Oklahoma State AAF National Student Advertising Competition team is heading to Amarillo, TX. Sixteen of us have created an advertising campaign for this years client, State Farm Insurance. State Farm became the client this year in order for college advertising group’s all over the US to create new ideas to target a younger audience. All of us have spent long hours doing research, working in our specific areas (media, creative, production, etc.) and coming up with the best ideas to target this younger audience.

I have learned so much about how an advertising campaign comes together from start to finish. I am proud of all the hard work that each person on the team has put in. Now that we are in the stage of practicing the presentation of our campaign to the judges we have gotten to see all of the work come together. I can’t go into detail of our campaign or leak any of our ideas since we haven’t presented yet, but I believe we will go far in the competition. Regardless of the outcome, this experience has been a positive one and I have learned so much.

My next blog will talk about the results of the competition when we get back from Amarillo!

Netvibes…My Current Obsession

One of the recent weekly discussions for Bill Handy’s JB4520 Social Media class was Dashboards. Since I just discovered what dashboards were I might be overly excited about it, but thrilled to know that there is something like this (and probably a billion other cool sites I don’t know about) out there.

Before I read the article and watched the video explaining how to use a dashboard I was extremely stressed out. It is getting to be that time in the school year when lots of end of the year projects and presentations are due and I really did not even know where to begin! Well, after creating my very own dashboard I downloaded lots of different widgets that consisted of News, Travel, Business and Fun sites. This is great for many reasons.

First, I added Ad Age, USA Today, Business Week and NewsOK to my page. I usually don’t go look on news sites and don’t pay attention to the news as much as I should. Going to my Netvibes page every day will be a great way for me to receive all of the latest news. I am excited about this because I need to know more about what goes on in this world!

Another wonderful widget that I added was the “To Do List”. Like I mentioned before, I was extremely stressed out about all of the assignments I have to do in the next month. Well, after writing it out I feel a lot better about getting all of it done. Having it written out neatly in a very organized manner made it better because it isn’t as much stuff as I thought it was and once I get stuff done I can cross it off of the list! And of course I have my Facebook and Twitter pages permanently logged in on my page.

Besides all of the great things I have previously mention (plus more) I am amazed at this site. It really makes me wonder how many awesome sites are out there that I just don’t know about. I am very glad that this was one of the sites that Bill showed us because I bet I will use this all of the time. I have already told my friends to make one…

JB’s Great Opportunities

For the past four years I have been in the Journalism and Broadcasting school.  I haven’t experienced a different area of study or different major, but I believe that JB is unique and offers so many great opportunities for students. I have taken a number of classes and have received opportunities that you can’t find anywhere else at Oklahoma State. In my close group of friends there are  Hotel & Restaurant, Education, Business, Interior Design and Political Science majors. I am the only one in JB and I have had such a different experience when it comes to school and I have thoroughly enjoyed it.

To explain my reasoning I will give you an example. Last semester I took a photography class and expected it to be pretty easy work and not much of a time commitment. Well, I was wrong. The class was extremely time-consuming and it was not easy. I have always loved taking pictures, but taking pictures for this class was at a whole different level. It was difficult because the class forced you to get creative and go out of your comfort zone to take pictures for certain assignments. Every picture had to have a story behind it and had to have the correct amount of lighting, shutter speed, exposure, ect. It was definitely an experience, but in the end it ended up being one of my favorite classes I have taken in college. It was such a great opportunity to show my creative side, learn about some great software and learn how to use a nice camera. This past Christmas I got my own Canon EOS and I love it. I would have never had these great experiences if JB hadn’t offered this course.

Another example of a great course is the class that I am writing this blog for, Social Media. Tons of college students and people use social media more and more these days. I think it is awesome that I have learned about so many different sites that I would have never heard of if it wasn’t for this class. I would not be writing a blog if it wasn’t for this class. I have been on Facebook and Twitter for a while now, but there are so many other great social media outlets that I have seen and am going to start using. There is a difference between just using social media outlets and using them knowing how many people it reaches and how much it has evolved over the past few years. This is a class that is only offered in JB.

Obviously I have enjoyed the majority of the JB classes that I have taken because I am an Advertising major and it is what I am interested in. I am sure most people are interested in classes that deal with the field that they are interested, but my whole point of the topic was to explain why I think JB has such great opportunities and is a different from the rest.

The Importance of Experience

I am now a senior Advertising major at Oklahoma State and I can’t believe time has gone by so quickly. Now that I am getting ready to graduate and trying to find a job, I can see why everyone tells you to get involved in as much as you can while in school. Not only do people say this because most likely it is coming from someone who has already experienced this, but also because it will give you experiences that are necessary in life and give you qualities that make you appealing to businesses that are hiring.

You are probably thinking that I am just talking about building a good resume and just looking good on paper, but that is not what I think. I think that joining organizations and interacting with many different kinds of people builds your social skills. You learn about people and learn how to deal with kinds that you aren’t normally interacting with. I believe that one of the things that makes a person stand out (especially in an interview) is someone who can carry themselves well and can carry on good conversation. I have heard stories about the smartest, most qualified people getting turned down from jobs because they have no people skills and the person who gets that job is someone who might not be as qualified, but can interact with people and has a good presence.

Along with building social skills, I think that being involved in your major gives you great experience and knowledge for the field that you intend to work in. For example, joining Ad Club and going on multiple trips to advertising agencies and seeing the “real life” aspect. Another way to do that is by getting internships to give you an even better way to learn the business in a hands on way. The great thing about that is, if you do a great job at your internship they usually ask you to come back and maybe eventually offer you a job. I am glad that I had a connection to an agency at home because that is where I started to really understand what it takes to get a job in that field. And speaking of connections, I think that a majority of the time connections get you a job and it’s not what you know, but who you know.

In my last semester, I have been more involved than in the past years and I wish that I would have started earlier. I am on the AAF team, along with Libby, and it is very time consuming, but I have learned so much already and I know that I will be glad that I did it in the end. It is intimidating going into a job interview if you don’t know a lot about how everything works in an agency. After my internship experience, being in Ad Club and especially being a member of AAF I believe that I will have so much knowledge of the advertising business.

This was the first topic that came into my mind because it is something that I have been thinking about a lot this semester. I am looking for jobs and starting to apply many places. I will definitely be one of those people telling kids to get involved in school!