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In order to support the pre-professional needs and interests of members in our community interested in learning more about a career in advertising and marketing, we had an academic/pre-professional event featuring prominent professionals in these fields. Our event featured Broadcast Producer, Willy Matos and Multicultural Marketing Consultant,Luz De Armas. Not only were they able to offer great insight and share their personal experiences in the field by discussing how they got to where they are today and how expectations in the field have changed given today’s technological era and the job market, but they also had a lot to share about the role of Latinos in the industry. They shared their insight as to how Latinos interested in media can become well respected in the field and help create a more diverse representation of Latinos within the industry and within in the media. Beyond that, they spoke about the importance of diversifying the industry and how difficult it is although it is slowly changing. Given the large impact media has on our world today, our guests shared the unfortunate fact that there is a lot of ignorance within the industry when it comes to depiction of people and of culture. For this reason, they were very happy to engage in a conversation with us and advise us in how we can advocate for the issues we care about as it relates to the media industry.
Our event objectives were to demonstrate achievements of Latinos in media, provide insight into media career path and provide a networking opportunity to students interested in media. Students felt the greatest part of the event was the fact that we had a conversation with our guests and it was not soley a presentation or lecture. In this sense, attendees were able to get their questions answered and stay engaged in the conversation. Our guests were able to tailor their comments to the specific interests of the group of students present and the conversation covered a wide range of topcs that coincide with the mission of our scholar chapter, particularly the goal to provide pre-professional support to our members while also encouraging them to be role models in our community. The discussion pertained to what educational background can help interested students become involved in the media industry but moreso, what they can do to help diversify the depiction of Latinos in the media today and why it is important that we are represented in the media production industry. Because many preprofessional organizations on our campus focus on providing panels regarding careers in law, medicine and finance, this event is a great example of how our scholar chapter provides new and different preprofessional programming on our campus and it is something we are very proud of.
