When I came back from my semester abroad in the spring of 2016, I was looking for an on-campus job that would help further my career and give me the experience I was looking for. A friend of mine told me the communications coordinator in Kansas State University’s Department of Agricultural Economics was looking for a student and that I should send him my resume. I did, had an interview and got hired on the spot.
Even though I was in college, I never considered working in communications in academia. Working in this capacity in academia can be very comparable to working in an agency but not all departments are like this.
The ag econ department is quite large compared to Communications and Agricultural Education, not only in faculty size but in the number and size of business units as well. The research that goes on in the ag econ department is interesting and diverse and the business units range from risk management to local government.
I compare working for the department to working for an agency because there are multiple points of contact throughout the department and we must work with the various programs and business units to create the content they want and the content that fits with our branding.
When I first started, I did not know how big the department was. One of our biggest challenges was figuring out how we would manage all the different aspect of the department under one umbrella and one message. This is something that my boss and I are continuously working on a year and a half later.
My primary responsibilities include social media management, website management, design and writing. I have also gotten to learn quite a bit about how to edit videos in Premier and After Effects.
Throughout my time with the ag econ department, I have been able to take what I learned in the classroom and apply it to really world situations. I have built so much on top of the excellent foundation I got in the ACJ program and I will be able to apply these experiences to what every profession I end up in after graduation.