I’ve always heard that experience is at least as important, if not more important, than a degree. Over the last few months, I’ve been able to experience that firsthand.
The combination of my introductory communications classes with the experience I’m having here at Mustang is the ideal situation for me. In the morning, I’ll learn a certain aspect of communications; that afternoon, I get to see exactly what my professor told me about. It’s a lot like being a collegiate athlete. While practice may be incredibly important to the success of the team, you can’t test yourself much by just practicing. School, for me, is like practice. For three or four hours in the morning, I get to learn these marketing techniques on paper (or on the overhead). Later that day, I get to experiment with these techniques and see how they fare in the “real world.” It almost feels like an unfair advantage for me to be able to apply these things I’m learning outside of the classroom.
The classroom isn’t the only place we can learn. Some of the smartest people I know are right here in this office with me for the majority of the day. You may be surprised by how much you can learn by simply listening to a meeting that your coworkers are having. I’ve absorbed a variety of new knowledge and techniques simply by sitting in on different internal meetings. While they may not directly apply to my current work, there will surely be a point in the future that I’ll be glad that I was listening.
I’ve been able to take on tasks from all facets of marketing, from editing images to writing blog posts. My current education emphasis is advertising and public relations, but why should that stop me from learning other aspects of marketing? There are certain moments during the week where I feel like I’m “leveling up.” Scott made a comment during our creative meeting on Monday about how important it is to portray our unique team personality, and how important regular face-to-face contact is. I didn’t have to take any notes for that to stick.
-Keith Sparks, Communications Coordinator