i want to thank the academy

Last night I found out I've been selected to be a part of the 2015 Bateman Case Study Competition. Don't worry if you have no idea what that is or why it's prestigious. I've tried explaining Bateman to my parents but it's completely pointless. Four years into my college career and they still aren't exactly sure what my major is let alone what the hell it is I want to do for a career, but they're proud nonetheless. 

I'm so relieved to know I've been picked for the IU Bateman team, all I want to do is guzzle a five dollar bottle of headache-inducing wine and binge-watch "30 Rock," probably with some enticing Chinese takeout boxes next to me. Well, there's that if anyone was wondering how I'll be spending my Friday. 

This competition is such an amazing and unique experience to help research, create and implement a full-scale public relations campaign from start to finish. Of course I can basically kiss my life as I know it goodbye, because from now until late spring semester it's going to be 90% this competition, 10% anything else. Still, I'm thrilled about the hands-on experience and I couldn't have asked for better teammates (hey Dan and Erin). 

Happy Friday everyone!

becoming a steminist

As I'm sure you've seen, 17 year old Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai recently won the Nobel Peace Prize alongside Kailash Satyarthi. These wonderful people and champions of global education are so deserving of this honor. 

Malala has vocalized her support for Code.org's Hour of Code program, encouraging women and girls to give computer science a try. I consider myself to be a writer and a creative person, a lover of words and beautiful sentences. Despite my journalism background and struggles with math, I am passionate about technology. I understand that tech is the way of the future and could not agree more with Malala that girls need to immerse themselves in computer science from a young age. Technology fields should no longer be a boy's club, and women need to be taking the steps to close the obvious and glaring gender gap. 

I'm making it a personal goal to become more proficient in tech and improve my STEM skills. I recently downloaded a "learn to code" program with hundreds and hundreds of hours of lessons and exercises. I was able to get this bundle for an amazing price through my job, but there are plenty of affordable and free opportunities online if you're interested in picking up some new skills. This name your own price bundle is an awesome opportunity we've been promoting through CEWiT. 

I'm determined to fit in some Ruby on Rails lessons and learn the basics before January. It's a lot to fit in with school, work and extracurriculars, but I'm doing bits at a time and will have more free time over winter break. It helps to set a personal deadline, and I know I want to be able to put these skills on my resume before my job search really picks up in the spring. 

I encourage you all to take Malala's advice and try your hand at Hour of Code. It's so important to be a well-rounded applicant in today's economy. 

wellp, i'm back

I decided to take a peek at this blog since it's been inactive for months on end. 

Mistake.

I am cringing so hard at the things I wrote, and actually laughing out loud at myself. HOWEVER I miss having an outlet to ramble about my thoughts and interests, so here I am again, embarrassing myself. 

Here are a few updates since I last wrote a blog post: 

1. Yes, I went to Italy for the public relations tourism course I blogged about months and months ago. We spent Spring Break in Rome and Florence, visited international PR agencies, toured a vineyard, saw the sights and ate the eats, and I celebrated my 21st birthday in Rome. It was the best week of my life and words simply can't do it justice. 

2. I spent the summer interning at Baltz & Co, a hospitality/food/lifestyle public relations agency with offices in Denver, Los Angeles and NYC. I was working in the Denver office and living with one of my best friends, so my summer was overall amazing. During the week I worked full-time at Baltz, and on the weekends I hung out with Hanna and took advantage of the Rocky Mountains being in my (her) backyard. Working at Baltz was definitely a crash-course in PR agency life. I was given responsibilities that I never expected to receive as an intern, but I am so grateful for that because I learned so much. I pitched to the media (and secured coverage in several national publications *pat on the back*), wrote and edited press releases, developed social media campaigns, attended key client meetings, helped plan national music/food festivals and much, much more. My boss, Sarah, was and continues to be a huge inspiration to me. I loved working under a powerful, successful woman who I admire so much. 

3. I am currently working for the IU Center of Excellence for Women in Technology (CEWiT) as the Public Relations Intern. CEWiT is an organization that aims to increase participation of women in tech-related fields through education, research, mentoring and community building. I am passionate about technology and digital marketing, so this job has been a great way for me to immerse myself in the tech world even more. I handle CEWiT's social media strategy, writing needs, research and content creation. 

4. I'm now a senior in college which is both exciting and terrifying. It's hard to believe that I'll graduate in May and be shoved out of the proverbial university nest into the big, scary real world. Despite the (many) uncertainties, I'm overall very excited to graduate and start my next adventure. I've lived in the same town for 21 years, not even branching out for college, and while I don't regret that at all I'm excited to live in a bigger city soon. Someone with this much wanderlust is not meant to live in one place her whole life. I'm jumping into the job search and looking for entry-level or rotational/apprenticeship positions in public relations and digital marketing. I'm looking everywhere from Ireland to California to Canada, but if I could handpick a city I'd probably choose Chicago. I wouldn't even need to change the blog name.