Most Promising Minority Students Class of 2012

It has been quite the whirlwind of a month so far and it's only February 6th. These past few days I have been in New York City with 49 other Most Promising Minority Students in advertising w/ the American Advertising Federation. It was an incredible 3 day event, I got to meet anyone and everyone I could possibly work for in advertising, as well as future colleagues. 3 days filled with lots of hand-shaking and talking up my skills and visiting  3 awesome agencies: Digitas, Deutsch, and DraftFCB. It opened a lot of doors for me to get my foot into the big leagues in the industry and even led to an official job offer. I now know that moving home jobless is definitely not going to be an option, now I just have to choose what I want to do and where I want to move.

Lessons learned from MPMS:

1. In advertising, the day you stop learning new things, you're done.
2. The connections you make with fellow MPMS'ers are just as important as the ones you make with the recruiters. It's all about networking.
3. Focus on what you want to do in an agency and strive towards it.
4. Advertising is way too time-consuming if you're not passionate about your work.
5. Handwritten card or email doesn't matter, as long as you follow up and maintain that relationship.
6. Recruiters hire people, not paper. Show your own personality in everything you do.
7. Keep a relationship with the recruiters by coming up with conversation topics including keeping up with recent agency news: new business, losing business, awards, etc. 
8. Always ask for feedback, whether you get the job or not. Especially not. 
9. Planners must have a naturally curious.
10. Be prepared with good questions, always.

I got back from MPMS on Saturday, hopped off the train in Providence, put on a dress, and went to Snoball. The next day I hopped on a plane to DC. Now I'm here for my 3rd CPAC a few days early to help the ACU staff prep for the conference starting Thursday. I'm shadowing the Communications Director again this year, should be an awesome CPAC since it's an election year. Now I am standing at a crossroads in life. Madison Avenue or the Hill? We'll see.

Thanksgiving

I feel like I am blogging about this so far after the fact but Thanksgiving was just a week ago. I cannot believe that, this has felt like a really long week! For Thanksgiving Break, I decided to save the air fare, work a few days and stay in Providence. This has been the plans for months which gave time for my friends at home to be able to plan a road trip to come visit me and see my world up here. It was so weird/cool to have my two worlds collide. The Cove and Residential Life did not make it easy, but I did manage to entertain guests in my apartment.

I had been planning for friends from home to visit me ever since freshman year. In my mind I thought I had all these cool places to show them all over the place and by the time they came, I sort of blanked. We had lots of fun around Providence the first day they were here. I showed them the downtown area and where I go to school and then I showed them all over the East Side. We got pizza at Nice Slice, got coffee at Coffee Exchange, went to Prospect Park, hung out at the hookah bar, then went to Providence Place and saw Morning Glory. Great movie! I highly recommend it, only looks like a chick flick but the guys really enjoyed it too.

Tuesday, after I got off work, we took the commuter rail to Boston for the afternoon. It's a real shame how little I know about Boston when I am only an hour away. Luckily the weather was not bad, it was cloudy but not cold. We basically did a lot of walking around, but we did find an great coffee place over by Harvard Square called Cafe Crema. It's good because Micah was impressed, that's a big deal in the coffee realm.

Wednesday was a LONG day. Wednesday was the day that Anderson flew in! We picked him up and did an abbreviated tour of Providence for him before seeing 127 Days at the Avon Theater. I had never seen a movie there so I was really excited to go. 127 Days is the James Franco movie about an outdoors man who gets stuck in the crack of a cliff and his hand gets stuck under a rock. The movie is all about how he survived. Another great movie that I recommend. We were hoping James Franco would make an appearance since he's a RISD student now, but he didn't show.

After the movie we rushed to New Haven to take the MTA into Manhattan to get a really good spot for the parade the next day. Probably the worst idea of mine in a long time. Long story short, we didn't need to rush to New Haven like I thought, and NYC may be the city that never sleeps but that means the crazies never sleep (like us), it progressively got colder and colder the closer we got to daybreak, and we didn't even get that great of a spot to see the parade. But I have to remember the good parts of the trip....we found a 24 hour Donut Pub. It was great, and I saw it on Unwrapped the Food Network show just the other night.

When we finally got back to Providence by 3PM Thanksgiving Day. I luckily can sleep pretty much anywhere so I got a really great nap on the train, so when we got back to the apartment the guys took a nap and I cooked my first Thanksgiving dinner. It turned out pretty great. I made a turkey breast instead of the whole bird and all of the trimmings.

The guys left Friday right as my roommates were getting back to town. All and all it was a very nice holiday and I am so glad my friends made the trip.