My name is Gabi Slucki and for the Fall 2018 Spring 2019 school year I have had the pleasure of being the Marketing Intern for Housing and Residential Programs. Throughout this time, I have learned a lot about marketing and more importantly the importance of using a blog to implement content marketing. Through these past two semesters this internship has challenged me to learn more about myself and shows me how far I have grown over this past school year. As time gets closer and closer to graduation, I am very happy I had the opportunity this year to participate in this rewarding internship that helped me develop skills for future jobs.
What did you learn about marketing and blogging?
Through this experience I was able to have hands on experience using concepts and techniques I have learned in my marketing classes. Having this hands-on experience helps me to understand marketing concepts better and marketing as a whole because I am not just learning it in the classroom, but I was actually able to apply them to real life situations. For example, by understanding my target audience better and knowing what they want to see, I was able to tailor and direct my social media and print materials to them in a more direct way to generate exposure and engagement.
As for blogging, I learned a great amount of information about this type of marketing as well. Before I was the intern, I actually wrote for the Odyssey Online community so the idea of blogging wasn’t new to me. The idea of writing a blog for business was newer to me because that meant I had to understand my audience better and make sure to use a consistent tone from post to post. This also meant I had to create topics within my market, this was a struggle for me at first, but once I fully understood the department and what they stood for I was able to implement more ideas to show their values, but also implement fun post ideas.
What did you learn about yourself?
Throughout this process I was able to learn more about myself. From the beginning of my internship to now, I have noticed a big change in my confidence as well as the content of my writing. Also, through the process I have learned more information on what makes a print ad like a flyer successful and how to design one to gain attention. During this internship, I was able to use my design skills I have developed through my business courses at Millersville and the experience showed me that I am capable of creating content that others will like. This internship also showed me that I know more about marketing as I thought and I should be more confident in my skills. The blog was a huge part of my experience as the intern and it actually showed me that I do love to write and I highly enjoy it, so I have actually been looking into jobs that involve blogging and writing after graduation.
What is your favorite blog post that you wrote?
Out of all of the different blog posts I have written over the course of two semesters, 43 to be exact, I think the post I wrote titled, “What Makes You Prideful?” was my favorite. This post was about the Pride Fest that Millersville had in October. I thought this was a great event and showed the amazing community we have here on campus as well as the cool events we have to offer students. Housing and Residential Programs had a table at this event where we asked people to write down what made them most prideful. Throughout the event, we received many different responses that I was able to analyze to create infographics for my blog post. I really liked the fact I was able to gather measurable data and add it to my written content to make for a great post. You can find the post here if you would like to read it!
A close second would have to be the post I wrote called “Barista Picks My Drink for a School Week” because it was fun to take part in and because I personally love coffee. If you want to check this one out as well you can click here !
What was your most memorable project?
The most memorable project I worked on during my time at Housing and Residential Programs was the long project I completed regarding the room selection process. In order to get the word out about the room selection process for next school year, I was tasked with creating a theme and connecting activities and events to help students learn more information. This was the most memorable project I had because a lot of my time went into it, but it was also a very fun project I worked on. For this project I was able to plan out events with Saxbys, the Upper Deck and also create an event for students to attend to learn more information on the process in the South Great Room. One of the coolest things I did for this project was help my coworker create a design for a candy bar that we can give to students to remind them to pick their rooms. This was an interesting idea we came up with to market the room selection process in a way that students would enjoy.
Overall, this was a great learning experience and one I will remember when I think about my time spent as Millersville for years to come!
