Media-Related Activites
In order to better understand your current involvement in the field of Media, please list up to five Media-related activities you have most recently participated in. Include any applicable positions/titles or committee memberships.
Explain any relevant contributions you have made since becoming a member. Can list up to 5. Keep between 50 - 100 words
- Founders - Community Team Lead; Forge 2021 Startup Weekend Co-Director:
- Managed a team of 8 graphic designers and engineers to strategize and execute social media advertising campaigns to promote Founders’ startup initiatives and pitch competition events; Wrote marketing and design guidelines to ensure marketing materials were coherent with the organization's mission; Leveraged Instagram Analytics to create curated content for our followers that led user engagement by 150% and doubled the amount of followers across all social media platforms. Taught non-technical members fundamentals of command line interfaces and markup languages (HTML/CSS) to contribute to designing our newsletters; Elected as Forge Startup Weekend Co-Director to organize Midwest’s largest entrepreneurial weekend with an emphasis on showcasing social entrepreneurship initiatives for the Fall 2021 edition.
- Chicago Startup Week Media Lead:
- Led a team of 4 graphic designers and content writers to create targeted advertising campaigns to 6 partnered universities in the Midwest in order to promote the weeklong entrepreneurial celebration of Chicago’s Innovative Entrepreneurial Ecosystem; Collaborated with University Representatives and Program Directors to ensure operations for the event was moving smoothly to expand outreach and presence over the media; Developed and designed the event’s website (chicagostartupweek.com) alongside creating official marketing, branding guidelines and themes for Chicago Startup Week; Outline social media campaigns and managed a $1,000 budget to execute curated ads across social media, pagerank presence, and giveaways for our social media challenges; Partnered with the World Business of Chicago to write two press releases announcing the event alongside obtaining an official statement from the Mayor of Chicago that has been pushed to over thousands of Chicagoans and MASSMAIL to IIT Students; Drew over 1,700 registered participants and curated daily Mailchimp emails for updates throughout the event that gained over 65% click thru rate among readers.
- CS125 Course Associate; CS124 Head Course Staff:
- Contributed to recording homework demos on concepts in object-oriented programming and data structures; Checked site material to ensure there weren’t any bugs on assignments alongside running quiz review sessions and contributing on the forum; Wrote resource guides for staff and technical guides navigating through Android Studio for students; Utilized Photoshop to design CS125 branded-material for video thumbnails for the on the daily lessons for the course’s Youtube page and slide decks while also in process of designing a new logo for CS124; Advocated to promote diversity in the CS field through initiating “CS Voices” component to the course where students would read weekly articles on ethics in CS and topics including search engine optimization, artificial intelligence and more; Promoted as Head Course Staff for Fall 2021 where the course will focus on a bi-lingual approach teaching fundamentals in Kotlin and Java; Current emphasis of work revolving around CS124 rebranding and writing technical guides for navigating Android Studio and documentation specs for the semester-long machine project.
- Kode With Klossy Instructor Assistant:
- Supported instructors in leading 400 high school scholars across the country to learn HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and jQuery through a virtual setting. Peer mentored 22 scholars to code a final project website alongside doing code reviews; Initiated community-building activities, hosted daily office hours to answer technical questions, and lectured CSS concepts; Developed a crowdsource website using Bootstrap and Airtable to connect students continuing engagement opportunities in computing after completing the program that drew over 900 unique site visitors since release; Ideated recruitment campaigns with the organization to promote outreach in marginalized communities within Illinois that drew over 80 girls to apply for the summer program.
- TechTogether - Tech Lead Chicago Chapter; Blog Writer:
- Oversee a team of 3 engineers to design and develop the hackathon website using frontend and backend technologies for the Chicago Chapter; Wrote technical specifications for the project; Conducted outreach for the hackathon; Contributed to TechTogether’s Medium blog by writing articles on personal branding, recruiting, and technical tutorials on developing personal websites and navigating through Github that drew over 9,000 reads and 72% read ratio.
Essay #1 (required) Meeting the minimum GPA and completion of coursework does not guarantee admission. Please write an essay of up to 500 words explaining how you reached the decision to apply to this major. Please highlight your pertinent strengths and skills that reflect the major as well as knowledge of your chosen major and your career aspirations in this field. Also, please include any additional qualifications and experience not listed above that reflect your interest within the major
“The beauty of advertising is that it allows you to express yourself through a creative medium. Combine it with technology, you’re going to impact thousands.” These were the words Professor Steve Hall passionately said across the lecture hall on the topic of creating effective advertising campaigns in ADV150.
Sitting in the front row of 112 Gregory Hall, I was fascinated by the topics Steve Hall talked about in ADV150 ranging from integrated brand promotion to how effective campaigns can impact consumers of a product. Before my first advertising course, I only learned about advertising secondhand through posting social media content for conferences I have organized in the past. I didn’t think advertising would have a huge impact on society despite my misconceptions being proven wrong.
Since then, my fascination with advertising has sparked and explored the field through promoting advertising for events for Founders across Facebook. It wasn’t until the rise of the pandemic where I began to take Professor Hall’s advice to heart and launch a campaign to advocate for an optional grading policy to the academic senate. I initially did research on how other universities implemented the policy and mocked how UMichigan started a Change.org petition to our University initially posting on r/UIUC and local class group chats I was in. I started the campaign using the knowledge I learned in ADV150, including active persuasion, that ultimately ended up having over 8,000 signatures and a MASSMAIL to be sent across the University regarding modifications for the Spring semester.
After the campaign, I solidified my interest in the field and wanted to learn more about the field. I branched out from my curiosity to learn more about digital marketing from taking courses on Google Analytics alongside building some of my technical skills I learned in CS125 to develop frontend technologies.
During the fall, I was appointed as the lead for Founders which my work focused on improving the brand of the overall organization. Through reading case studies on effective marketing campaigns for my BADM320 course, I wanted to take my skills a step further to organize effective campaigns for the organizations. I dabbled in marketing analytics from the Instagram Analytics page and dove deeper into promoting the Founders brand.
By then, my fascination with advertising and technology solidified my interests in the field of digital marketing that left me to create effective advertising campaigns and writing articles for the media.
The field of online advertising is rapidly changing and by pursuing Computer Science + Advertising, it will allow me to not only understand the algorithms behind advertising, but to develop algorithms for effective advertising. Furthermore, the courses will allow me to bridge the gap between technical and creative knowledge such as cloud computing, web analytics, and content creation, all which are vital skills for an advertiser. The College of Media will allow me to explore my pursuits within the field and gain a set of mentors that will allow me to go down the path that my current would not lead me to.