Communicating Your Best Self: A Pre-Media Day Workshop

UWG’s Department of Mass Communications will be hosting a Pre-Media Day workshop on Wednesday, Feb. 21 from 5-6:30 p.m. The event will take place in the Humanities building, room 312 and will be hosted by Dr. Melanie Conrad. 

        ‘Communicating Your Best Self’ will be the theme of this workshop. It will be broken up into three different mini-sessions including: Using the Best Channels for the Best Messages, How to Work a Career Fair, and The Art of Networking. The idea is to prepare students to network and communicate with professionals on Media Day – which is taking place on March 7 at 9 a.m. in the Campus Center Ballroom.  

        “The idea is for this to be a refresher workshop, because a lot of these things students have already been exposed to, just to get them prepared for Media Day,” said Conrad. “They will be meeting a lot of potential employers and will be networking with those people, so we want them to be ready.” 

         Because students will have the opportunity to participate in various networking events, it is important for them to know email etiquette beforehand. The workshop will consist of tips and tools on how to properly communicate with a variety of channels and why that is important to the their careers.  

        “Two of these sessions students may have already seen,” said Conrad. “We’re going to do a networking session and how to work a career fair, because in a way Media Day is like a career fair, those are workshops that Career Services has done in the past. This year we’re adding to it – something about how to communicate through a variety of channels, because so often students do know how to properly communicate through an email.”  

        No matter what a student’s major, communication can make or break a potential employer – a good first impression is always important. Knowing when to use which medium of communication can be just as vital. Before taking that step into that first big job out of college, students should know when to use the appropriate means of communicating with an employer and how to conduct oneself when doing so, whether it be by email, telephone, or even face-to-face. 

        “I joke about how sometimes you hear stories about people breaking with someone up in a text message,” said Conrad. “We know instinctively that that’s wrong, but we sometimes don’t make that same transition when we’re doing something more professional.  

        “It’s titled ‘Communicating Your Best Self’ because as soon as you walk through that door students need to have that sense that they’re being observed, and so with this seminar they can know that they are well-qualified for the job,” Conrad continued. “We’re not doing the interview skills or the dressing for success thing because we know that these are things that most students have been exposed to this – they’ve been through these things over and over again. It’s intended to be a refresher, not an intro, to these skills. We’re looking at what are the most important things that we need remind students of that we can address right at this moment. These are the most critical things that’s why we decided to focus on the communication aspect.” 

        Media Day only comes around once a year. It is a great opportunity for all students, not just Mass Comm. majors, to market themselves to an array of potential employers. Attending the Pre-Media Day workshop on Feb. 21 is definitely a great way for students to hone their communication skills and give them the upper hand on Media Day. All students are welcome and encouraged to attend the event from 5-6:30 p.m. in Humanities 312.