Maybe not so Promising a Minority Student… Nah!
It’s been a long time since I last wrote, and now I am back from the Most Promising Minority Students even that was held at the New York Athletic Club in New York. It was fascinating. Just amazing. There were industry immersions with some of the greatest leaders in advertising - including DraftFCB, ESPN, New York Times, Young & Rubicam, McCann Erickson. And we even got to sit down and talk to some of the executive managers in top agencies at Publicis. There were 49 or so recruiters for 49 students. That’s a 1 on 1 chance to get hired…
But here’s the bad news. My portfolio wasn’t ready. I know, it’s stupid not to have my portfolio ready, but I simply didn’t have the time. Taking 7 classes and running the ad club may sound easy - but it’s not really. But to be honest, my experience at the event gave me new insights about my self.
See, here’s a weakness of mine. When I am determined to do one thing, I am totally committed to it. Yeah, maybe it’s not a weakness, but here’s the thing - I love copywriting but I’ve never been able to test my skills as a copywriter. And at the same time, I’ve been ignoring other areas of advertising. I know I’m good at coming up with crazy concepts, but I’ve realized that wasn’t the one thing I had to pursue. So I regret, not having had much internship experiences at ad agencies. So now, I’m really open to any positions in the ad agencies, just so that I can get a better view of how things work in those crazy places. How ideas are born, how they are executed and implemented, all of those things I should have seen. And so now, I’ve decided to open up my views instead of having a parochial mindset of what I want to do.
But yet again, I’ve had some great leads and networks with many agencies. I mean, I would have never even thought about meeting anyone at such great agencies. And so I’m developing more strategies to get my name and works out there… I’m still working on them, but starting with my new website and portfolio is the first step. I’m a believer in change. And I will change. And thus, I am hopeful.