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Hi, I'm Lauren Wretman.
I am a senior here at Iowa, studying journalism and I have a business emphasis.
I'm also going to get a degree in leadership studies.
I kind of always saw myself coming here and then I took a visit to campus and absolutely loved it.
So, I decided that I would become a Hawkeye.
I work in the University of Iowa Admissions Office and I work as an Admissions Representative.
So basically, when kids come to campus to visit in high school with their families,
I give them a presentation, answer any questions that they have about Iowa,
and hopefully, make them want to come to school here.
Heather Spangler is my professor for my Event Planning class.
She actually is an adjunct professor in the Journalism Building
and she works doing the strategic communication in the Education Department.
So that's really cool because we get a real world experience, having her talk about all the work
that she does in the Education Department and how that relates to journalism.
She also graduated from the school, so that's really fun to have her have that side of the conversation as well.
There is a lot of crossover between the two views, both to use the course as an opportunity for my students
to practice some real life events that I plan for the College of Education.
It's really nice to be able to show them a real world example of a job that I have,
that I'm doing this work and I'm putting my Journalism School skills to use doing it, so they can too.
The event planning class is a lot of fun. It's a workshop style course. It's a lot of hands-on experience.
We bring in a lot of working professionals to talk about their careers and their experiences
and then students get to do real world events and experiences from beginning to end,
setting goals, planning the event, carrying it out, following up.
So they get to really experience what an event planner's life is like.
In the Journalism School, I've mostly been focused on public relations or strategic communication courses
and event planning was actually first offered last semester, so I was in the first class of students to go through it.
It was something that I had always been interested in and I thought that could fit really well with a lot of the other
PR classes that I had taken. So I decided to take it and it was really great. We got to work on planning a lot of different
types of events. Whether by ourselves, in groups, learning how to work with a budget, work with your client,
different things like that, that I had never done before.
And so through that class, you got a lot of experience doing those different sorts of things
and it's helped me figure out my skill base in that area and how I can apply that,
now that I'm applying for future jobs and internships and things along those lines.
So the event that ended last semester for my Event Planning class was really cool, they had a lot of different,
local event planners come in and talk to us about how their jobs differ, how their similar,
what they do in their day to day lives at work, doing the different events.
We had event planners from different disciplines come in and talk about their work and talk about opportunities
for my students if they were interested in internships or if they wanted to get advice about getting a job in the field.
That was a place that they could talk with a broad variety of professionals.
It was really fun to kind of see some the jobs that are available out there and then get to talk with them
and network with them about potential jobs or internships or hear the specifics of what they do on a day to day basis
and why they enjoy their job so much. So it was a really interesting thing to be a part of and I really enjoyed it.
The University of Iowa is a great place and the School of Journalism is really special.
There are incredible professors, there is a really great variety of courses.
The event planning field, in particular, is really growing and so I think it's exciting that the Journalism School
has brought it in and made it a focus.
What I think is great about the University of Iowa is that there are so many opportunities here.
When I came in as a freshman I would have never realized what different things I could be involved with.
From academic experiences that I've had and the classes I've taken here in the Journalism School
or experiences such as different student organizations I've been a part of, internships that I've held,
all those different things that were available to me as a student here have just helped make me who I am
and are great things to talk to future employers about and help me get a job after college.