Elaine Aradillas Gives Texas State Students Tips on Finding a Job

By Tyler Rodgers

SAN MARCOS, Texas –

            Texas State students are informed on how to find a job in journalism by experienced crime reporter for People Magazine, Elaine Aradillas, when she spoke during a Mass Comm Week panel on Wednesday, October 26, 2016.

When you have multiple people
 trying to take your picture at
the same time, you take a
snap of them!

            Elaine Aradillas is a crime reporter from People Magazine who has had the experience of working for multiple major magazines and publications before landing her job with People Magazine. Aradillas started out wanting to work with art when she graduated from University of Texas in 1999, with a bachelor’s degree in art.

            While attending the University of Texas, she wrote features for the San Antonio Express News, where she got her first experience as a journalist. During her second lead, she had to go out and report on a motorcycle crash. Upon arrival to the scene she noticed the body bag but saw police officers scanning the field nearby for the motorcyclist’s helmet which still had his head inside of it. It was at this moment that she knew she could handle being this type of reporter, and she fell in love.

            Aradillas loved the realm of crime journalism and decided to go to Columbia University in New York in order to pursue her Master’s Degree in Journalism. This is when she applied for a New York Times internship and landed the gig, writing features for their Art and Leisure column. She wanted to write crime-related features but two people were already fighting for the position so she decided to write for the art and leisure column anyways. As Elaine Aradillas said herself, “sometimes you land the wrong job, at the wrong time, but never stop fighting for what you want.” This was an important lesson that she instilled in Texas State students during her presentation on finding and fighting for the job you want in this clustered society of journalism.

            The field of journalism is always changing and in order to stay on top and keep the job that you want, you have to keep fighting and pursing your dreams. Like Aradillas mentioned in her speech, “it’s not always easy to find the job you want, especially with all of the competition, but if you want a certain job then you have to fight for it. And if you don’t succeed at first, then try again.” Tyler Rodgers is a Public Relations student with a minor in Communications at Texas State University.  

Author Bruce Bendinger visits Texas State’s Mass Communication Week

By Mary Wink

SAN MARCOS, TEXAS -- Bruce Bendinger, advertising industry veteran and author, visited Texas State University on Tuesday to speak to students about the importance of building a personal brand in order to land a job after college.

Mass communication professionals from across the nation visited San Marcos yesterday to speak to students about their perspective fields. Bruce Bendinger, whose book “Brand You!” discusses personal brand development and advertising, offered students strategies on how to build a personal brand that can improve any students chances of getting a job in the mass communication field after college.

Students filled the seats to listen to Bruce Bendinger’s lecture on how to develop a personal brand. He began by giving the key components of building a personal brand such as creating an online presence, and having a database of contacts to refer to when necessary. “Your brand should be strong and simple,” the author said. He also gave an acronym for students to remember when developing their personal brand: K.I.S.S – Keep It Simple, Stupid. There are several factors that combine together to create a personal brand including the evolution of media, sales promotion, and making connections with other professionals. Bendinger emphasized that students must keep up with the evolution of media in order to keep their brand relevant.  Students who manage accounts on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have developed an online presence, and are in the early stages of building a brand. Bendinger referred to these individuals as “broadcasters”. “We are all broadcasters and we can all be a part of the media,” he said. One audience member, Kelly Williams, a junior majoring in Public Relations at Texas State, was surprised to learn social media played a part in the development of a personal brand. “The fact that social media plays into your overall brand and how employers view you is a really scary thing. I know that personally, the brand I have already started to build on social media is not the same one I want to present to an employer.”  Bendinger ended his presentation by telling students to find their path and then follow it. He then opened for questions and chatted with students who raised their hands across the room. Bruce Bendinger’s book “Buy You!” is a more in-depth instructional look at developing a personal brand and can be found among his other works here.

Ad Professional Explains How to Build Your Own Brand

 Advertising Professional gives students advice about Personal Brand Building

By: Courtney Lipsey

Brand You Powerpoint, Photo By: Courtney Lipsey

            SAN MARCOS, TEXAS — This week is one of the biggest and important weeks for Mass Communication majors and many interested students. Mass Communication Week is a week of many visitors of professions involved in mass communication coming to give students advice on how to get a career in their specific field.

            There are many sessions to attend for whichever topic fits a student’s major. Advertising majors attended the “Brand You! Getting Ready to Get a Job in the 21^st century.” Bruce Bendinger, the author of Brand You!, discussed the importance of creating your own personal brand and how to put together a portfolio to help get a job in the future.

            Bruce Bendinger is an advertising professional with many experience in brand building. He has worked with many firms like Proctor and Gamble, LensCrafter and Popeyes, to name a few. He also wrote books like “The Copy Workshop” to help give advice on building your personal brand and portfolio.

            Bendinger started the session with a thought of the day which said that “Media is Revolutionary.” He explains how media is always evolving. He gave students many fun facts and lessons for how to build their brand. Bendinger explains how creativity is very important especially with social media. Bendinger said, “Think about user experience and user communication…we have to be visual and quick.” He went on about brand building and stay connected to people for database. The four points he gave students on how create their brand is creating through the 3-up method, start and grow your database, understand your brand story, and start your portfolio and improve it. Bendinger said, “In terms of social media/culture, you are what they want” as he explained how the industry today is taking on digital and need people who are experienced.

Bendinger explains to students about the 3 up method. Photo by: Courtney Lipsey

            The advice Bendinger gave at the end helped students be more knowledgeable on how to create their brands. Marketing major, Hannah Burmeister said, “I learned that it’s a good thing to start small and having your brand story helps you later on.” There will be many other informative sessions for the rest of Mass Communication Week for students to take part in.

            Courtney Lipsey is an advertising major at Texas State University.

Alumnus talk Public Relations

Texas State University alumnus share their Public Relations stories

By A’Naiya Davis

 

 Photographed by A’Naiya Davis

SAN MARCOS, Texas—On Tuesday, the Texas State Chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America hosted an event in conjunction with Mass Communication Week named “The best for and by Bobcats: PR Cases”.  The event allowed students to have small group discussion, with four Texas State University alumnus that graduated with a degree in Public Relations. During each discussion, students were allowed to ask questions, request advice, and pick the alumnus’ brains.

During the event students were granted the opportunity to talk to Sarah Sutton, an account coordinator with Hahn Public Communications. Sutton, a 2015 graduate, summarized her favorite PR case and shared her journey with Hahn Public Communications. Sutton stated, “I interned at Hahn during Spring of 2015. I was not granted a job opportunity as soon as I graduated because of budgeting, so I moved back home to Dallas. 2 months later, they called me with a job opportunity and I moved back to Austin.” Sutton told students that she fell into Infrastructure PR

Sutton talked about her work with companies around the Southern United States, as well as, the material she was taught during her time at Texas State that applies to her job now. “At Hahn, we use the PESO model in public relations. PESO stands for paid, earned, social and owned,” said Sutton. She also emphasized that Hahn Public Communications began as one of the oldest Advertising firms in Austin, but since has included Public Relations, Marketing, Graphic Design and etc.

When asked, a freshman who wished to not be named stated, “I actually came to this session to see what PR was about and this actually gave me good insight on what PR actually is”. For more information about Hahn Public Comunications, you can access their website at http://www.hahnpublic.com/

A’Naiya Davis is a Public Relations major at Texas State University.

The Stars and Stripes title page shown during the presentation

Mass Communication Week at Texas State

Copy editor of ‘Stars and Stripes’ Melissa Field shares her job experience

By Vianney Strick

 SAN MARCOS, TX — To be the copy editor for the military news source “Stars and Stripes” was not Melissa Field’s first career choice. Field spoke to a classroom of students at Texas State University during the school’s “Mass Communications Week”. “I had a goal when I started college and that was to be an engineer,” Melissa shares. After skeptically taking a career development course in school and discovering her love for journalism, Melissa became involved in her new career path. She believed that editing would bring more stability for her and that there would always be options for jobs. She attended the University of Maryland and was part of the school paper. After graduation she got the job as wire editor in “Stars and Stripes” and is now the desk chief editor with a 17-year work history with the company. A normal work day for Field includes looking at page layouts, choosing where pages and stories are located. She put emphasis on the importance of simplicity. “If you’re looking at an image of people doing things, just have a caption telling the readers about the people doing the things” shares Melissa.

Melissa Field pointing at a slide of her presentation

showing a page of Stars and Stripes

“Stars and Stripes” provides the readers with military news, headline news and also some coverage of sports. The news shared are very critical to the readers as they also report about life-changing events. Melissa explained that “9/11 was the worst day of [her] work life.” She encouraged the students to stay motivated in the work environment. “Every editor has strengths and weaknesses, they become apparent pretty quickly to the supervisors. Embrace your strengths and acknowledge and work on your weaknesses, and you’ll be fine,” Melissa advices. The students in the classroom reacted positively to the information she shared. “The speaker had a lot of useful advice, not just from an editorial aspect, but as far as writing in general to make for a better piece no matter what it is,” electronic media major Kristopher Tondre explains. Melissa Field taught the students that the end goal is not always what someone believes it is but they should embrace and work hard whatever their future career has in store for them.

Vianney Strick is a student at Texas State University majoring in Electronic Media