by Sarah M. Wang During my very first week of college, one of my internship directors said something that shook me to my core. She told us to bring our resumes to the meeting and proceeded to say, “You see everything under the ‘Experience’ section? Delete it.” To add insult to injury, she went and crossed out all of our high school leadership positions, awards, and achievements. I was shocked, to say the least. Everything I had worked so hard to accomplish during the past four years went out the window just like that. Though I could hardly bear to part with my prized accolades at the time, I understand now that it was a bittersweet but necessary farewell to my high school self. If I walked into an interview boasting about being prom queen or SMW President, my potential employers would have laughed and shown me the door. In college, there are thousands of ASB presidents and valedictorians — luckily for Arcadia High School students, there’s nothing quite like DCI. To this day, DCI is the one high school experience that I still talk about in interviews. After all, how many other high schoolers got to run an entire school district’s social media accounts? What teenager has the connections to land an internship writing for 22 local newspapers? Who else got sideline passes to cover the largest high school track meet in the country or received the Mayor’s Certificate of Commendation for filming a district-wide PSA? And it wasn’t until I got to college that I realized how incredibly rare it is for a high school program to host professional development workshops from such distinguished guest speakers like LA Times’ Teresa Watanabe or Buzzfeed’s Ryan Bergara. As brilliant and amazing as Arcadia students are, it is the work of storytellers in the AUSD PR office and DCI program that truly places AHS on the map to attract talent from all around the world.
As much as I enjoyed my DCI experience, I didn’t expect to pursue a career in journalism or communications. I was admitted to UCLA as a Business Economics major and planned to place into a top consulting or investment banking firm. Despite making a carefully color-coded four-year plan for a career in finance, I ended up applying to the Communications major and found myself in familiar waters. Thanks to the three years I spent in DCI, I now had more experience than many of my peers in a variety of aspects: press release writing, video production, journalism, photography, social media management, graphic design, marketing, professional networking, and more. Even now, my videos are never filmed vertically (unless by stylistic choice) and years of hearing “NO REPEATS” has trained me to always check my work meticulously. My established LinkedIn profile has been carefully critiqued over the years and Mr. Foran’s cautionary tales about “digital footprints” have kept me from sharing anything I wouldn’t want my future employers to see. My time in DCI under Mr. Foran and Mrs. Nuuvali’s mentorship has served me well. Looking back, there were many times I came home exhausted after covering a long football game or stayed up late organizing thousands of photos. But in the present, there are many more times in which I’ve felt incredible gratitude for the wisdom and experience they’ve poured into me to truly prepare me for a career of success in "digital communications" and beyond. Today, I am the Chief of Publicity of UCLA’s Undergraduate Student Government and an Executive Board Member of the UCLA Undergraduate Communications Association. Next week, I start my first real job as one of three Marketing Communications Writers for the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering. Though I have yet to enter my second year of college, I’ve already had the privilege of working with vice-chancellors, Strategic Communication directors, and New York Times Higher Education Managers. I’ve gotten to work closely with fellow like-minded students from all across the UC system, across town at USC, and across the country at Boston University. Without DCI, I wouldn’t be where I am today. My humble advice to all you rising stars in DCI: step up. Sign up to cover that extra sports game. Volunteer to draft that special press release. Follow up with that professor you met at the USC Annenberg Journalism Day. Make yourself an invaluable asset wherever you go because you never know how the things you do or the people you meet will open doors in your future. And of course, say a big thank you to Mr. Foran, Mrs. Nuuvali, and all the people who have and will continue to set you up for a lifetime of success.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Blog Posts Written by DCI Interns and Alumni Archives
February 2024
Categories |