Name: Emily Sanderlin
Degree: Strategic Communications
Expected Graduation Date: May 2018
Looking back on her four years in the School of Media & Strategic Communications, Emily Sanderlin recognizes that she started her collegiate career unsure of what she wanted, but she couldn’t have chosen a better path for herself.
Studying strategic communications has offered Emily a future in the field and also helped with her current job as a tour guide at Oklahoma State University. Through this job, she shows prospective students and parents the campus and shares information about the school, residential halls and involvement. “My major really helps me being a campus tour guide,” Emily said. “It’s all about selling the university and marketing toward a specific audience.”
Although Emily has interned with Make-A-Wish and Station8 Branding Agency, she’s still unsure what she wants to do after graduation. As an intern for Make-A-Wish, she was in charge of one specific project for the entire summer, and she was able to interact with families by calling to learn more about their child and what they may want as their wish. Many of her intern duties at Station8 Branding Agency included writing, competitor analysis and learning about multiple clients.
“My career goal would be to find a job in public relations that encompasses writing and speaking and has a lot of human interaction,” Emily said.
Emily considers the difference in college and high school to be quite large. She believes that students in high school complete homework specifically to receive a grade. In college, work is done to learn and retain that information. She thinks that choosing a major is one of the most important aspects of college because a student’s interest in class will determine how well they do and how much they care.
“Everything you do in SMSC is training you to get a job one day,” Emily said. “I can honestly say that I enjoy my classes and learn from my professors every day.”
If Emily could give her freshman self advice, she would say it’s OK to get a B. She considers it important to take more difficult classes instead of easy classes. Emily struggled with this idea for some of her collegiate career, but she now understands that learning comes from making mistakes and seeing the corrections.
“In the end, no one will care if you had an A or a B in the class,” Emily said. “They are only going to care if you can do the work two years after the class is over.”