Then and now... and what I hope I learned in between

What I know now that I wish I knew then... This post could probably be more than this space allows, but I'll keep it simple. I've made many mistakes throughout the three years I've been at GCSU, but I've learned from all of them. I wish I could say that this is a guide so that others won't make my same mistakes, but it's not. I still believe that you have to make some mistakes on your own in order to learn from them. Some advice that I can give you is:

1. Time Management. It can save your life. In order to get through college, there will be a degree of stress everyone faces, but it doesn't need to be unbareable. Everything can't be put off until a later date because that later date will soon catch up with you. The way to beat it is handle tasks as they come. Make time for these tasks and only handle one at a time. If you try to juggle too much, a ball is bound to drop.
2. Get to know your advisor. I've found that some students are intimidated by their advisors, but they shouldn't be. You shouldn't be afraid to ask questions. Advisors are there to help. They know that students are clueless about what classes to sing up for each semester. One thing I found really helpful was sitting down with my advisor and mapping out the rest of my college career. Of course, I didn't do that until my Senior year, but it would have saved me some worried if I had gotten that over with my Freshman or Sophomore year. Some of my classmates have reached their Senior year and still have one random core class to take that they had forgotten about. Map it all out because that one class you forgot to take might be the reason you have to stay another semester!
3. Don't procrastinate on completing practicum hours. For a Mass Communication major, three practicum hours must be completed, and only one hour can be completed a semester. The moral of the story is, map out your schedule for all four years!
4. Participate in internships. In the Mass Communication major, an internship can only count for credit if you have completed three to four of your chosen concentration classes. Don't let this discourage you. You can still do an internship. Class credit is only one of the many benefits of participating in an internship. I've worked at internships every summer throughout my college career. Even though I didn't get credit for some of them, I gained real world experience that will help me with my career down the road. As a matter of fact, I probably wouldn't have gotten my most recent internship for class credit if it hadn't been for my previous internship experience.
5. Networking. Any one you meet can be a contact for a potential opportunity in the future. These connections play a big role in getting employed out of school. Remember who you meet and always be professional. You never know who can help you later in life.
6. And probably the most important... GET A PLANNER! You will loss your mind without one.

What did you do during your summer break?

This simple question always takes me back to elementary school. I remember that first day of the school year that consisted of a little bit of show and tell about all of the awesome summer camp experiences everyone had over the summer break. As my senior year begins, I really wish I could go back to those kinds of summer breaks. Where all I had to worry about was the possible sun poisoning and prune-y fingers at the pool. This summer was just a taste of the real world soon to come, when those lazy summer days will be over, and it’s time to take one big leap into the big pond.

Over the summer I did a really great internship with really amazing company. The internship I had with LocumTenens.com opened my eyes to a whole new realm of marketing, advertising, and public relations. LocumTenens.com was the perfect company for my first big internship. They had a marketing department consisting of about 15 people that handled all advertising, public relations, direct marketing, etc. This was a great way for me too see into the real world of a marketing department because they didn’t treat me like “just an intern”, but as a part of their team. Another great aspect of LocumTenens.com was the size of the company. It was big enough where I was able to witness the chain of approval, but not too big where projects got lost in the exchange.

LocumTenens.com helped my growth as a pr and advertising student tremendously. My teachers at GCSU have given me plenty of projects that would simulate the real world, but nothing has been more beneficial than seeing it first hand in a company setting. LocumTenens.com gave me a whole new respect for my major.

During my internship, the company was going through some very significant changes and I was very fortunate to be a part of them. They are a physician job board and recruiting firm; therefore, they rely heavily on their website for much of their business. This summer the marketing department implemented a completely revamped website and a spokes character to represent their new look as a company. It was such a great experience being a part of this rebranding process for the company.

My contribution to the project included creation and copywriting for the new ad campaign, connecting with media contacts for advertising, and writing material for the new website. I had full creative freedom to create a new ad campaign for them. That was probably the funniest part of the entire internship. I was able to design the ad, write the ad, and create the layout for many of the publications in which LocumTenens.com advertises. Of course in a company like LocumTenens.com, I had to get everything approved, but it was still very enlightening to be able to be in charge of a project like that from start to finish. I was also in charge of keeping all of our media contacts, mainly medical journals. I was in charge of finding all contacts for the publications and making sure that LocumTenens.com advertisements were up to date and sent to our contacts by the publications’ closing dates. As for my involvement with the creation of the new website, I mostly just had a hand in writing material that will go on the new website. They had a whole team of experts working on the creation of the website, but they still needed writing for it. LocumTenens.com has five different medical specialties that they concentrate on recruiting and to whom they advertise. I wrote material for all five specialties’ career center web pages. I also wrote a bio for their newest vice president and made other website content changes as needed.

Along with the new advertising, LocumTenens.com was also finishing up their naming contest for their new spokes character this summer. I helped plan the internal release for this spokes character’s new name. This was another great project of which I was able to be a part. LocumTenens.com is under a parent company, Jackson Healthcare, which also houses one of LocumTenens.com’s competitors in the same building. I was able to help with the introduction schedule of the spokes character and I got to witness a little bit of friendly competition that even the president of LocumTenens.com called a marketing operation that positively changed the company culture of Jackson Healthcare as a whole.

If there wasn’t enough going on this summer at LocumTenens.com, they went from being a niche, recruiting firm to including Primary Care as one of their five specialties, which is the largest medical specialty. It is also very big undertaking by itself without everything else going on within the company. I was able to help write the press release introducing this new specialty for LocumTenens.com. I was also in charge of making contact with all new publications in which they would be advertising as well work with those contacts to create new ad schedules. For this new specialty, I also helped with any direct mail pieces that LocumTenens.com needed for the big reveal of the new specialty.

My largest project of the summer was their quarterly newsletter that was sent to every physician they work with, in every specialty. I had to research and write articles for the newsletter pertaining to each of the five specialties. I was also able to design the entire layout for the newsletter. In the end, the director of marketing ended up using all of my articles and my design in the newsletter. I think that final project was probably the most satisfying. I was able to see how much work I put into it and what I got out of it, which was getting my work sent to more than 10,000 physicians.

I really learned so much from this internship with LocumTenens.com. I was able to put everything I learned in the classroom to work and gain even more experience in the career I love. Honestly, I don’t think I could have found a better internship for what I wanted to do this summer.