IMC Hawks Blog

Tag: Graduation

  • Time Flies Faster Then You Think

    Our three years here at UNCW has been a nonstop learning experience. We have not only gained knowledge in classes, but have also gained valuable and unforgettable life experiences. Laura transferred to UNCW after her freshman year and since she has been in Wilmington has had three very valuable internships. The key to getting a job in this market is to have experience in your field of interest and being able to effectively market yourself to potential employers. In our IMC 1 class we had an assignment where we had to market our personal brand and why we should be hired over our competitors. It is crucial to understand how and why your brand is better than the kids sitting next to you. It is not only important to know why your brand is the best, but you also need to understand how to market your experiences and internships to fit the qualities for your potential employer. Taking advantage of internship opportunities, especially for credit through the Department of Communication Studies, is a great idea for anyone and everyone. Without those experiences we would not be as prepared or as knowledgeable about our field of interest as we are now. So, when you’re thinking of what to do with all your time during the beautiful summer in Wilmington, think about taking an internship or think about how you can make your brand stand out among others.

    Another important piece of advice is to get involved on campus. Once you are a student, UNCW becomes your home away from home. The best way to find comfort is meeting and bonding with other students who are in your exact situation. UNCW has over 200 clubs and organizations for students to become involved in. The only hard decision you have to make is: which club should I join? Tennis, TealTV, Communication Studies Society, the choices are endless. The moral of the story is this: get involved on campus and make your presence known. You only have four years, which believe me, flies by in a blink of an eye. The friends you make in college become your friends for life. It is important to make your college journey memorable, exciting, and one that you can laugh about 40 years down the road reminiscing with your old college friends.

    Lastly, as a college student, one of the most important things you do is research. Whether it’s writing a report, putting together a presentation, or simply watching the news on TV to catch the latest events, you are gathering information to analyze. Some of this information will be forgotten shortly after graduation, if not before you even cross the stage to get your diploma. However, some information you have gathered through your college career will stick with you for a lifetime and will become helpful in future career situations.  Learning doesn’t just stop when you get your diploma. The research skills you learn to use as a student can be used for the rest of your life, as you strive to be an informed individual.

    So just remember, time flies. Before you know it you will be walking across the stage to receive your diploma.  Don’t just be a beach bum, at least, not all the time. Do something that will show your future employers that you did something with your short time here to make a difference.

    -Laura Simmons, Brooke Keller, Ashley Oliver

  • What’s Your Unique Brand Style?

    UNCW’s Communication Studies Day includes an informative Dress for Success Fashion show for college students of all ages and levels. The fashion show will also include skits demonstrating the importance of an elevator speech, professional attire, portfolios, and how necessary it is to be prepared for interviews. This year the theme, “Will You Make the Cut?” is based upon the Food Network show “Chopped.”

    One idea about IMC manifested in this fashion show is that company image and brand management is very vital for growth and success. Individuals, as well as companies, have always had their own image and have to manage their own brand. It is sometimes hard for college students to transition from a student image that they have had for the past 13 years to a business professional image. The great part about the fashion show is that it shows students how to transition from their current image and brand to something more professional.

    Whether people realize it or not, we are branding ourselves every day through the types of clothes we choose to wear in professional or unprofessional settings. Your unique brand style can be a description of who you are in a job interview setting. It is very important to make interpersonal connections with job interviewers through your developed style and authenticity that will make you stand out from others. Branding yourself when looking for a job is very similar to branding a product. Basically, you are selling yourself as a product to your potential employer with the goal of standing out amongst the rest. Are you casual business, formal business, chick, trendy, preppy, classic, or a hybrid of several?

    By: Laura Simmons, Mollie Berthold, Dorothy Conley, Christina Stevenson

  • Time Flies, When You’re In College

    I can remember kindergarten graduation like it was last week. I had on my white dress, frilly socks with my shiny, white shoes (I never understood this style) – big white bow in my curled hair, and lipstick. I remember being incredibly embarrassed when I walked across the stage to get my diploma; simply because when they announced my name and my aspirations of being an ice skater when I grew up: the crowd burst into laughter. My graduating kindergarten class of 1996 was full of future firefighters, doctors, teachers, policemen, and then there was me – the future ice skater. Needless to say, where I am from we do not have ice rinks; we barely even get snow every other year.  This experience at an early age, to realize that I was different and had an imagination, paved the way for how I would now approach my life. I branded myself creative. From this point on, I decided that I was going to be me – no matter how many people laughed at me.

    Fast-forward 15 years and here I am graduating college.

    It honestly feels like just yesterday I was moving into Cornerstone Hall on UNCW’s campus, a ‘fresh’ new student straight out of high school. When people say “time flies when you’re having fun,” they are referring to college. I cannot grasp the fact that in 10 days I will be a college graduate; time has definitely flown by. Before this semester began, I thought I had it all figured out, and that I was “ready” to graduate. However, I had it all wrong! My current feelings are similar to Peter Pan’s in that all I want to do is scream “I will not grow up! You cannot make me!” But, I realize that I am not Peter Pan and I do not live in Neverland; I am a Communication Studies student who is about to step foot into the real world. It may be scary, and I might not like it at first, but its life. I shouldn’t worry though – I am prepared for it. I have taken so many different classes at UNCW, have experienced so many different things, and have learned from all of them. I have dealt with my share of “crazy” roommates, the difficult realization that UNCW will never have a football team, and also a climate that is all but predictable. As I am about to graduate, I can honestly say that I am a better person after my time spent as a Seahawk. Although I am not 100% sure what I want to do with the rest of my life, I know that UNCW has prepared me for anything.

    An excerpt from Robert Fulghum’s book, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, is the list of things learned in kindergarten – with the insight I have gained over the past 15 years in parentheses:

    • Share everything. (but write your name on it, roommates sometimes steal from you!)
    • Play fair.
    • Don’t hit people. (it is against the law when you get older)
    • Put things back where you found them.
    • Clean up your own mess. (if you don’t, no one will)
    • Don’t take things that aren’t yours. (you will get caught)
    • Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.
    • Wash your hands before you eat. (getting sick in college is not fun- your mom can’t make you soup!)
    • Flush.
    • Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. (but you should probably visit the Rec Center too)
    • Live a balanced life – learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
    • Take a nap every afternoon.
    • When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together. (especially when you ‘go out’ downtown)
    • Be aware of wonder.
    • Remember the little seed in the styrofoam cup: The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that. Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup – they all die. So do we.
    • And then, remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned – the biggest word of all – LOOK. Everything you need to know is in there somewhere.
    • The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living. Take any of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or your government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm.
    • Think what a better world it would be if all – the whole world – had cookies and milk about three o’clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had a basic policy to always put thing back where they found them and to clean up their own mess. And it is still true, no matter how old you are – when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.

    Some things change and some things stay the same but in the end we all have to grow up. But for the next week and a half that I have left as a student, and for everyone else that has time left here, and for the future Seahawks – I suggest we listen to the lesson that Jay-Z and Alphaville live by and stay “Forever Young.”

    — Jordan Hill

  • Closing the chapter to start a new one

    Today was my last day of college classes! The text books will get sold back to the bookstore shortly, the notebooks will get tucked away and graduation is so close I can smell the freedom of no more school work or projects. My time at UNCW has been a journey. Like any journey there are ups and downs, triumphs and tribulations, tears of joy and tears of pain but I took them in stride and persevered the toughest circumstances I had faced. There have been moments where I wanted to give up, but that is life. The hard times are exactly what it says HARD, but it is how you venture through those times where you succeed and they can only make you stronger and a better person. Absolutely nothing is going to hit us as hard as life. But is it not about how hard you get hit, it’s about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward. But we have to be willing to take the hits, and not point fingers saying you are not where you are because of him, cowards do that and that is now me, that is not those of us who are in this graduating class of 2011.


    I can’t think of a more tenacious, more courageous graduating class that the one. It is finally here, all of the hard work has paid off. We all have been prepared on what to expect after graduation, searching aimlessly for jobs hoping to get a bite on the line of resumes we send out. We have compiled our portfolios full of artifacts with our best work, so we should be set right? Well somewhat. We are well prepared an well-rehearsed on how to approach the challenging interview questions, but we are about to enter a new chapter. This new chapter no longer has a safety net or someone to hold our hand, it is the real world where we have a choice to sink or swim. The world is my oyster and is anxiously waiting for me to reveal my talents.
    I am very proud of myself and of my achievements I have had at UNCW. I have had several phenomenal mentors who have provided me with the building blocks of who I evolved into becoming. THANKS MOM, MY #1 FAN!!! It has not been easy being pulled in so many different directions by so many responsibilities. But I muddled through, and I held tightly onto my dream and now that dream is a beautiful reality and a sign of a wonderful tomorrow. The plans of jobs are distant. Applications have been sent and few call backs and interview are in the midst of being scheduled. I know that most of us are concerned about our future, but there’s no need to worry. The economy is booming, the job market is wide open, the planet is just fine. It’s going to be great…… well here is to wishful thinking. But I am hopeful dreamer.
    The torch can now be passed along to others. My work here is now complete. Here are a few tips for those to who are about to embark on their new chapter.
    • Think outside the box to fill the box.
    • Don’t stop learning, keep trying to excel and grow.
    • Don’t miss an opportunity because of a prior commitment or class. (Sorry professors) Take advantage of everything you are given. You may kick yourself later.
    • Don’t ever let someone tell you, you can’t do something. Protect each dream and find the path that will lead you to it. If you want something go get it. PERIOD!
    • There are many roads we can take in life, there are also paths, and some trails, and some paths that turn into roads that then turn into trails. I guess what I’m saying is life is a journey and you can go whichever direction you want.
    • It is easy to slack off, but don’t do it. Taking the extra steps now will make things better in the long run.
    • Don’t say you can’t, because you can. It may be HARD, but deal with it.
    • Don’t be a lizard brain. If you are unfamiliar with any of Seth Godin’s books or blog, a lizard brain is simply saying how you want one thing, but you do something else. That’s a bad characteristic trait to have and does not look well on anyone.
    To conclude live each day by this quote from Ellen DeGeneres it has always put things into perspective for me. “Life is like one big Mardi Gras. But instead of showing your boobs, show people your brain, and if they like what they see, you’ll have more beads than you know what to do with.”

    -Michela Noreski

  • Looking Forward

    Going green.  It seems to be at the top of every corporation’s priorities.  In this day and age we have a better understanding for how unsustainable our daily lifestyles have been since the start of industrialism.  In the past, building and developing areas was praise-worthy.  Urbanization has supplied new jobs and opportunity for the ever-increasing population.   It is only in last fifteen to twenty-five years that we have started to realize that depleting our natural resources and burning fossil fuels cannot persist at the rate at which they are.

    Alternatives must be sought out. 

    Today, we can still live freely without compromise, however, the media has brought on an underlying pressure to conserve and to use less.  People are speaking out about Global Warming’s effects and the public is listening.  The message is now resonating that the way we do business personally and professionally needs to change.  With a heightened awareness of going green amongst the general public, it has opened up a new avenue for companies to use in appealing to their target audience.

    “Green this, organic that”…  business motives have shifted and companies are doing whatever they can to show they are a green, sustainable business. Marketers have leaped into branding “green” through strategies and ideas that promote the better goodness of the environment.  Besides a company’s involvement in becoming more sustainable, the main concern lies within the image they portray. Today, for the general public green equals good.  In going with a “green” company, it allows people to grant themselves with a feeling that they are doing the right thing for themselves, their environment, and the future based on what the mass media has hyped about the environment.  The color green symbolizes many positive aspects about a company’s values, making it crucial for any business to incorporate the theme into the design of their logo, website, advertisements etc.  Having an overall look of being clean, simple, sustainable, organic or recyclable seems to be what’s driving some of the most successful companies around us today.

    by: Oliver Evans, Sally Shupe, Jared Sales

  • The Real Cost of Advertising

    Our economic troubles are hurting deeper than the punch from the gas pump, bruise from increased tuition costs, and stabs from the job market. These economically challenging times are also abusing the fundamental business principles that companies have relied on for years. In particular, these bad financial times are changing the way advertisements are valued.

    Many companies assume that when they are affected by hard economic times, it is best to pull the plug on various advertisement campaigns as a way to cut marketing costs. However, this kind of penny-pinching seems to only make the struggling financial situation worse. According to a study prepared for American Business Media by Yankelovich Partners and Harris Interactive, businesses who continue to run ads have a significant competitive advantage over those who choose to cut back.

    Simply: there is a value to spending money on advertisements, regardless of economic struggles.

    Darwin’s theory of “survival of the fittest” has never been so true in today’s economic downfall. Companies cannot risk pulling their advertising from the marketplace if they want to remain in the thoughts and minds of consumers. If only the fit survive, then a company should use aggressive advertisements and marketing strategies as a way to not only reach their audience, but to intimidate the competition. The continuation of building clientele through running advertisements establishes an image of loyalty, faith, and stability a company has in their product or service to the consumer. If the advertisements get pulled, then so will the opportunity to reassure to consumers that the company is prospering despite the economic hardships.

    If a company is facing the decision to pull advertisements as an attempt to adhere to budget cuts, it would be wise to think beyond the element of monetary cost. Because the cost of losing attention could be larger than the amount of money you may be saving without advertisements.

    -Oliver Evans, Sally Shupe, Jared Sales

  • Wow WE made it!

    As my final days at UNCW come to an end I start to remember how it all began. When I came to the university I was young and clueless, not only about my college career but life in general. With the guidance of great faculty and an excellent student body I found my way to where I am now. A few finals away from Graduation day….

    I am nervous and excited, yet scared of not knowing what my future holds. There is one thing that I am certain of, and that is I know UNCW has prepared me for the next step in my life no matter what that step is. I say this to all the seniors graduating now, and to those that will graduate in the future. You might not know what exactly your next step is, but you can be certain that your college experience has prepared you for it.

    My advice to anyone that will graduate later on down the road is to make the most of your college experience. Take the classes that interest you, talk to your teachers and meet your peers. I know it sounds “old” and kind of “cheesy”, but when you step foot on campus do everything to the best of your ability. Don’t hold back anything because one day your college career will near the end and you want to feel how I feel now. You want to feel prepared for the future, and you want to know that you tried as hard as you could in school and did everything you wanted. Take advantage of the opportunity you have to attend college and make the most of it.

    -Drew Mayer

    To the graduating class of 2011, WE made it! This is our moment to say all the research papers, presentations, nights in the library, our stress because we procrastinated in finishing a project, we did it and all our hard work has finally paid off. This is the moment our parents have been waiting for when they can say their “little” boy or girl graduated from University. All of us have come so far, gone through the good and the bad, and we can finally say we did it, were graduating. Most of us have been going to school non-stop basically our whole lives and some of us will continue our education in Graduate School. But what we most importantly need to understand is we never gave up, even when at times it seemed as we would never reach the end. I was a transfer student to UNCW in the fall of 2009 and attended this University not knowing a single person. Let’s just say how blessed I feel that I chose to be a Communication Studies major transferring in. You’re forced into groups, your forced to stand up and talk about your self the first day of class, but most importantly your forced to learn how to COMMUNICATE and NETWORK with others.

    These past two years at UNCW have been the most rewarding experience I could have imagined. Not only is it a great school, but also the Communication Studies faculty and students make it enjoyable to go to school each day. When Professors still greet you in the hallway by your first name even though they haven’t taught you in over a year and ask about your future plans, which to me is the best feeling. To those of you not graduating embrace your time left here. It comes sooner than you think and as excited I am to be graduating, I will miss it more than I thought I would. Not only should you embrace your education but embrace your life outside of school. Soon we grow up, we graduate, we get jobs, start families and as amazing as that is going to be, your time at school is a part of your life that comes and goes fast. Never stop having fun and enjoying life and always remember to network as much as you can. Cheers!

    -Lindsey Baggett