Daily Archives: February 7, 2018

Newsletter Articles

Student Profile: Gabrielle Redcay, Digital Journalism

Gabby Redcay
Gabby Redcay

Gabrielle Redcay, a Digital Journalism Major, will be graduating this spring with a resume full of different, interesting internship opportunities she experienced over the past four years at Millersville University. From interning at a newspaper to blogging about food, Gabrielle has seen the positive impacts internships have on narrowing down a career path or building necessary work-place skills.

Starting as a content strategist, Gabrielle was a content writer for the digital marketing company Income Store where she performed search engine optimization research. She worked with teams to discuss content and plans for improving return on investment.

Since then, Gabrielle has been working for Millersville in the Communications Department as a Communications Assistant. In this job, she creates press releases for the community, runs social media accounts, and conducts interviews with the faculty, staff, and students of Millersville for articles in University publications. It was through this job that Gabrielle had the opportunity to intern with La Vos Lancaster over a summer.

La Vos Lancaster, Lancaster County’s only publication focused on the local Hispanic community, gave Gabrielle the opportunity to witness all aspects of running a print publication. Pushed out of the classroom and out of her comfort zone, she was forced to stretch herself and meet real people while interviewing for current event, profile, and feature stories. This internship was especially satisfying because the skills she learned at the paper mirrored her classes the next semester; it was easy to see how her classwork was applicable to the real world. Even while on the job Gabrielle was always networking for new opportunities; it was by interviewing for the paper that she met her next internship opportunity through Jim Chaney.

Gabrielle Redcay

All it took was one email and Gabrielle found herself interning for Jim Chaney, a traveling blogger from Uncovering PA. The Millersville Internship Office is very willing to work with students to help them find the best internships, and Gabrielle found it easy to collaborate with them in establishing this internship. Gabrielle always joked that she would love to become a food blogger someday–and Jim Chaney helped her realize that her dreams could easily become a reality. Internships, especially ones with companies or people you are less familiar with, can open the world up for different employment opportunities.

Internships, while great resume builders, also offer necessary skills and experiences for the real-world job-market after graduation. Gabrielle would like to tell Millersville University students to enter the search for internships and to be open to new experiences. Millersville is very connected to the real world and it is important to take advantage of that – learn from everything!

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Alumna Profile: Alyssa Leister

Alyssa Leister
Alyssa Leister

My work experiences while in college, primarily at the Provost’s Office and establishing the Honor’s College Research Newsletter, gave me the confidence and experience to apply for a position at Sight & Sound Theatres. Through the past five years, I’ve worked in several positions, most recently finding my fit as a Project Manager in our Creative Services department. I get to use my creativity to help manage the retail offerings for our theatre, my organizational skills to support projects for our HR and Facilities’ teams, and even my love for Christmas to coordinate the Christmas decorating efforts at the theatre.  While my job is diverse, there are elements of my English degree that I use, as I frequently am counted on to be the copy editor for large and small projects. I’m grateful for the opportunity to work at a place that is known for exceptional productions and service, and know that I’m here thanks to my Millersville degree and education.

Newsletter Articles

Alumnus Profile: James Senft

Jim Senft
Jim Senft

My degree was English with a Print Journalism Minor. I worked in journalism for about 8 years after graduating from MU, spending most of that time working for weeklies produced by Engle Publishing out of Mount Joy. It was a fun job and I was getting paid to write, which was great, but I eventually decided print journalism wasn’t the way I wanted to go anymore, as the newspaper industry continued to suffer. I was fortunate to find a job with Auntie Anne’s soft pretzels in Lancaster as an internal communications specialist. There, I spent five years learning how to transition my writing and communications skills into a business environment. After my time with Auntie Anne’s, I transitioned into an internal communications role with Burlington Stores and moved to Philadelphia, where I spent a few years eventually getting a different job with a company called CSL Behring. They’re a biotechnology company based out of King of Prussia, with a global presence of more than 20,000 employees in more than 30 countries. I’ve been with CSL Behring for about two and a half years and was recently promoted to a senior specialist role. I’m traveling more with this job than I ever have in my career and last fall had the pleasure of attending a conference with some of my global colleagues in Bern, Switzerland.

The most exciting part of this job for me though is that it’s given me an opportunity to get back to my roots in journalism. Our company recently launched a news site called Vita, where we share stories from our company about our patients, our culture, science and our viewpoints on biotech topics. Through this job, I not only have the chance to write articles for this site, but I also create videos to tell stories. Here is one of the videos I’m most proud of.

Jim at JNC, "Junior National Championships," an event his company hosts where children are invited who have bleeding disorders such as hemophilia and Von Willebrand Disease to a sports weekend where they practice golf, baseball, and swimming (depending on their interest) with professional athletes who also have bleeding disorders.
Jim at JNC, “Junior National Championships,” an event his company hosts where children who have bleeding disorders such as hemophilia and Von Willebrand Disease are invited to a sports weekend where they practice golf, baseball, and swimming (depending on their interest) with professional athletes who also have bleeding disorders.

I definitely wouldn’t have the career I have without my time at Millersville, and I’m always grateful for what I learned from the professors in the MU English Department. I think my career path shows that even if you don’t go a traditional route with your career, you can still often find a way to do what you love if you follow your passions, as cliche as that sounds. Find things you like to do that others value and do them well and it’s likely that someone will want to hire you.