Forever thankful to HC
When I came into college, I was like most students who had no clue what they wanted to do with the rest of their lives. I knew I was interested in Psychology but couldn’t envision myself working in the clinical field or the research field. I had briefly considered Business but dropped that idea as soon as I realized I would never be a Calculus girl. So, I declared myself as a Psych major and pursued that right away, hoping the answer would come to me.
Meanwhile, my roommate freshman year was devoted to getting into the Journalism School and was joining every activity possible. She knew exactly what she was going to do and was going to do everything possible to make sure she got in. I had always loved writing as a part of my newspaper club in high school, but I definitely did not want to be a journalist and took no interest in joining the clubs she was joining.
However, when she became a part of Her Campus during the first semester of freshman year, she highly recommended it. Of course, I was skeptical at first because I was not pursuing journalism, but she explained that it was much more creative writing, which I was always a fan of. So, as per her advice, I joined during the second semester and loved writing about the things I was going through. But, we were sent home for COVID and with everything going on in my personal life during my sophomore year, I did not have the wherewithal to manage a club so I took the year off.
When I came back as a junior, I found the club to be much more inclusive, and I began making friends with the girls in Her Campus. I quickly became Section Editor and saw the social media posts my friend would make as Social Media Manager. I realized that I would love to be on the Social Media team because the idea of making fun and pretty graphics for the club was exciting for me. I thought about how cool it would be to design the Her Campus Wisco clothing since I had started a small clothing business during quarantine and loved tinkering with templates to create designs.
This was when I really started exploring the idea of doing social media or Communications-related jobs as a profession. Ideally, I would’ve applied to the Journalism School and gotten a degree in Strategic Communications on top of my Psych degree, but it just wasn’t practical with how far I had gone in my Psych major and how many credits I had yet to complete. I was hard on myself because I kept thinking that if I had figured this out sooner, I could have hopped on this train a long time ago, I was always under the impression that the Journalism School was for people who wanted to be writers or to teach English. I never knew about Communication Arts or that I could quite literally major in learning how to talk to people strategically. Despite this, I have been able to pick up the Digital Studies Certificate and the Design Strategy Certificate, which allowed me to learn more about these subjects.
Luckily, Communications is heavily interrelated with Psychology, so I wasn’t completely off track even though I couldn’t get a Journalism degree this late. I began to switch gears and took classes that would help me develop my media literacy and communication skills. I also joined AdClub to be a Social Media Manager for a vintage clothing company on State St.
I applied for Social Media Outreach in Her Campus my first semester of senior year and was obsessed. I was up late nights on Canva simply because I was having so much fun designing graphics. I got to combine my creativity with my perfectionist mind to create a social media post that could empower women or educate people on the things women go through. I wanted to go even further, so I applied for Social Media Director in the spring, and I got the position!
I am now working an internship with Evoke Agency as a Strategy Intern and truly love the space and the work I do. I think to myself often that if it weren’t for Her Campus, I would have never explored the avenue of social media or communication arts in general.
I found that what started as just a hobby to let my creative emotions out became something I could seriously do for a living. While I am nowhere near where I want to be in terms of expertise in the subject, I finally found what I wanted to do for a career. I owe it all to Her Campus for opening that door and showing me that there really is a way to make a job out of something you love doing.