Meet Some of Our Marketing Students

I came into college as a Criminal Justice major, and decided to take a marketing work-study job at the Leahy Center for Digital Forensics & Cybersecurity (The Leahy Center). After my first week working as a Marketing Assistant there, I decided to switch my major to Marketing because I loved it so much. It was so easy to switch majors since my professors and Faculty Advisor were so helpful with the entire process.

One of my favorite things at Champlain is the Core. When I came to college, I was a totally different person. I grew up in a small town and had no idea how the world worked outside of that. In my Core classes, we discuss so many different perspectives and deeper-level topics. This has molded me into a strong activist who looks for multiple ways to achieve a goal. Core really allows you to explore your personal ideas and beliefs while connecting with others in your classes.

Being a Marketing major at Champlain has opened so many doors for my future. In my first two years, I have had over six jobs and internships that were directly related to my major. It's truly an amazing experience to show up to class and have representatives from Seven Generations, Ben & Jerry's, Burton, and other big names there to work with you on class projects.

I knew I wanted to do something in the business world, but I wasn't quite sure what. With the Upside-Down Curriculum, I was able to take a few marketing classes from the start and realized I really liked them. Marketing is perfect for me. It involves a lot of creativity and talking to people.

I could talk all day about my experience with the Office of Diversity & Inclusion, or the ODI as students call it. Champlain feels like home, but the ODI is like going back to your own room. There's a lot of support for all students from all different types of backgrounds, which I really love. If you ever go there, you will be laughing within 10 minutes. It's so fun.

My first year, I lived in Lyman Hall, and I loved it. I'm from a city, so all the old houses I'd ever seen were in museums. When I pulled up on move-in day, I thought, "This is great. It's like living in one of my books."

The Upside-Down Curriculum is incredible. I enjoyed how it put us right into our major at the beginning. I was able to work with a lot of local companies around Burlington in my first year, and that got me really interested in what I want to do in my field. I got some experience talking to some of the founders of Queen City Brewery and understood what kind of business direction they were going in. Queen City Brewery is a relatively new company, so they wanted help in their marketing scheme, and we were definitely able to work on that with them.

The Core class that had the biggest impact on me was my Aesthetic Expressions: Street Art class my sophomore year. That class was really eye-opening, and I was able to see the world in a whole different way. Street art is everywhere. You can turn a corner and see something that you would never intentionally look for. It's something subliminal. That class opened my eyes to how a lot of things aren't as obvious as they seem.

In winter, I like to go skiing. I started skiing my sophomore year, and I'm completely hooked. I started going with my friends. I had a Friday off in my schedule, and we ended up going every Friday of that year. I love the environment, and the world that opened up to me when I started skiing, especially in Vermont. Champlain even offers a discounted Sugarbush pass, so it's pretty inexpensive to ski around here, if you already have gear.

My professors are so personable and kind. They get to know me and what my career goals are, and they always help me pursue those goals. I've had professors recommend internships to me and help me network with companies. Our professors really want to see their students succeed in class and in their careers.

I went to Prague in the Czech Republic, where I studied at the Anglo-American University. While in Prague, I took courses like Brand Management, Project Management, EU Policies in the Business Market, and I did two classes for our Core curriculum: Prague Art & Architecture and Cultural Journalism. I learned a lot about the city, brand management, and even myself. I pushed myself out of my comfort zone, met new people, and had a lot of fun.

I was a Brand Strategy intern at Fuse in Winooski, Vermont my senior year. Fuse is a local marketing agency that works with national companies on event-based marketing aimed towards millennial and Gen-Z audiences. Towards the end of my senior year, Fuse started searching for a junior associate to join the team. They were looking at all of the applicants, but they just kept thinking about me and my work. My supervisor said she didn't want somebody new to apply, and she wanted to hire me because of all of the amazing work I did as an intern. Now, I work there full-time.

The Upside-Down Curriculum is hands-down my favorite part about Champlain's academics. Who wouldn't want to start studying in their major starting day one of their college career? There is a lot of pressure on 18-year-olds to somehow magically know what they want to do for the rest of their lives. In many other schools, you don't actually start in your major until as late as your junior year. Not at my school!

One of the best things by far about Champlain is how career-focused they are. The amazing folks over at the Career Collaborative make sure we have everything we need to be prepared for our futures starting in our first year. We learn everything from how to optimize our résumé and LinkedIn to creating our own elevator pitches. They even have job fairs every semester to connect local employers with student job seekers.

There are so many incredible experiences for you at Champlain. What are you waiting for? Come join the fun!

Data Science and Marketing are a great fit because a lot of companies are looking for analytical skills. In my marketing internships, it's been an extra bonus to have a Data Science background.

The first travel course I took was in my sophomore year, and it was to Zanzibar. It was with Professor Gary Scudder. The class was on aesthetics expressions, and it was basically about art, looking at different types of art and the world in general. We went to Zanzibar during winter break, and it was an amazing experience. I never thought I would travel at all, but Champlain  provided me with that opportunity, so I took it. It was mostly about looking at different cultures in the area and expanding our knowledge on different types of art. One of our projects when we were there was to pick an artifact, it could be anything at all, and basically analyze it and see how it differs from different types of art in the world in general. 


I also went to India in my junior year, also with Scudder, and it was a religion class looking at Islam and how, in different parts of the world, it affects different mechanisms in terms of how people worship. That was also very educational, and I loved it.

During my freshman year, my first year here, there was a volunteer workshop at Black Girls Code. Black Girls Code is a company that tries to help women of color get into tech world, and they focus mostly on programming. So, getting women to code and stuff like that, but mostly minorities in different regions that they might not have the resources to. I did a volunteer workshop and I taught an HTML class, so that was really great. It was very hard teaching kids, but I definitely learned through it, and I was able to teach the class really well.

The Marketing professors I have had have all been amazing to have classes with. They keep lessons up-to-date with relevant industry knowledge, have a wide network of other Marketing professionals that is used for live-client projects, and are awesome human beings overall. There is such a variety of careers that Marketing students can choose from, and I've appreciated that the courses are set up to allow students to explore what parts of Marketing they have strengths in, and furthermore, what areas they'd like to work in specifically. I've found a love for social media marketing that is focused in data-driven content creation, and have been very lucky to have had multiple internships within that field.

I love how real the professors I've had are. It's rare to get a professor who is teaching outdated information about a subject, and there are so many professors who are fresh out of actively working in the industry, or they're still publishing content in the industry while teaching at Champlain. I've found connecting with professors to be quite easy, and when you get to know a professor really well, they are a forever connection who is always available to give advice or a recommendation to help you-even when you're not in their class that semester.

I've been a mentor for Champlain DREAM since the first friday of my first year. DREAM is a mentorship program for lower-income kids, providing them with enriching activities and opportunities, as well as college student mentors who give them support and advice. It has been a great way to meet new people at Champlain, but also for being able to engage with local Vermont communities that I wouldn't have known otherwise. I've always enjoyed working with kids, and I've been able to make meaningful connections with all of them, specifically my official mentee, who is like a sister to me now.