Reflective Essay:

My educational journey started about sixteen years ago and it has been an absolute whirlwind of a time. I completed my K-12 education in California, before moving to Florida to start and finish my undergraduate degree. When I first started my college experience, I was a frightened teenage girl, who thought she knew everything about the world. I had no clue what I wanted my major to be and was scared I would never find the right major to pick. Over my four and a half years of going to college, I have learned many lessons, which I hope will suit me well for my professional career.

One event that really shaped my educational career was when I had to volunteer at an elementary school for one of my classes. During my first year of college, I really wanted to become a teacher. I thought it was my calling, so I changed my major to early childhood education. The first class for teaching I took was Intro to Education, in which the teacher had us volunteer 30 hours at a school for an assignment. As I volunteered at the school, I realized that teaching might not be the career for me. I love working with kids and the idea of being able to teach them, but how classrooms are treated by the government just did not sit well with me. Teachers work five days a week, plus some of the weekend to lesson prep, and they barely get paid to support themselves. I knew this job was not for me. People who are teachers are amazing and strong people, and they have all of my respect, but I knew I would not enjoy it after a couple of years. Volunteering in that class helped me to decide that I wanted to change my degree to Communications and Digital Media. I have always loved the world of Digital Media and knew no matter what, this would never get old to me. 

           The next event that shaped my educational career was taking my first Social Media Strategy class at University of Massachusetts Global. I remember being so excited that I would get to experience and learn about how to make a social media strategy plan. My dream job is to be a social media manager or strategist, and I could see myself coming up with social media plans for future companies. It was also one of the hardest classes I had to take as well. There are so many little pieces that go into a social media strategy plan, which I do not think people realize. You have to find exact data and do a deep dive into your target audience in order to create a plan. I am so happy that I was able to participate in that class, which furthered my love for my degree and helped build the foundation of my educational journey. 

           There are a few insecurities that I have with moving onward from my education career to my professional career. The first insecurity I have is not having enough experience in the social media field. I have been using social media since I was thirteen, but that experience is personal and not business. To fix this insecurity, my goal is to do an internship first, which will allow me to gain more knowledge about how to use my degree in real life. I think educational situations we practice in classes can be completely different from professional situations that I might experience in real life. The only way to learn how to handle those situations is to be put right into the field.  I have started to look at internships I can participate in after I graduate with my degree. 

           The next insecurity I have is that I am not creative enough for the field I want to pursue. To create social media ads or campaigns, the people working in those positions have to be very creative in order to come up with good materials. It scares me that I might never be creative enough to come up with those good materials. There’s really no way to fix this insecurity, except to tell myself when the moment comes, I will be able to use my creativity and imagination to create an awesome campaign. 

         I have many aspirations that I would like to complete in my life. One of them is traveling for work - I would love to travel to get content for companies to promote them. I think my aspirations tell people that I am hardworking and I have a lot of different goals I would like to accomplish. People will see that I do not give up and will keep pushing until my goals are completed. I don’t think my aspirations will really affect anyone. I do want to ensure that my goals do not harm my friends or family and instead, will only benefit them.     

        In the next five to ten years, the challenges I will face will be Artificial Intelligence. The invention of AI is changing almost everything and I think it will change how social media operates. I will have to adjust future social media plans or content with however AI is affecting the world at the time. In order to prepare for this, I will try to research as much information about AI as possible, so I am able to figure out how to use AI. 

       I am so thankful for my time here at University of Massachusetts Global and for all of my professors, who have given me feedback to grow and improve. I have learned so much over the years and I am excited to learn more as I step into my professional career. 

— Alyssa Elness