Hello, my name is Nicole Miao. I come from Guangzhou, located in deep south of China. It is a place where you can have unlimited amount of dim-sum everyday and no snow all year around. I have spent 4 years in Penn State, and I will be graduating in Spring 2018. My majors are Advertising and Information Science and Technology (IST). I am a Schreyer Honors College student, and I also minor in Business and pursue a Smeal Business Certificate.
As you are reading this, you might have thought of many reasons for being part of Penn State: beautiful campus, outstanding football team, etc. Different from most students, I did not have a chance to visit the campus. I chose Penn State because of its high rankings in my interested major — Advertising. Penn State is one of the few undergraduates that open Advertising major.
Although I applied to most colleges for business major, I did not want to push myself into business so early. I wished I could have a chance to know more outside of the business area. This is why I chose Advertising to be my major: it is close to marketing but stands on the opposite perspectives in terms of consumer and company. In Advertising major, students have the opportunities to learn how to conduct research, how to create campaigns for different types of businesses, and how to create the artwork. Therefore, when we graduate from Penn State, we will well-prepared to work.
Penn State is such a great place for you to explore yourself. Advisors and faculty members would try their best to guide you through the struggle and confusion. As I take more and more major classes, I am falling in love with this major completely. But meanwhile, I want to explore more about other majors. One of my professors told me that I should try to take some IST classes, since the Advertising industry is moving from print to digital side. Hence, after I have taken some computer science and IST classes, I wanted to learn more about the nowadays technology and how it affect the way people live. In fact, my honors thesis is about to understand the persuasiveness and effectiveness of advertisements on various digital platforms.
Penn State has a lot of opportunities waiting for you to find. There are numerous student organizations, honors society, clubs and classes on campus. From volunteer perspective, THON is one of the largest Penn State affiliated organizations on campus. Every year, it hosts dance marathon in Bryce Jordan Center in order to provide emotional and financial support for families impacted by childhood cancer. New students can also participate in Fresh START, which is to volunteer with local Non-Profit organizations. In addition, there are many academic related student organizations on campus, where you can learn a lot of things that professor might not teach in class, like communication skills, leadership, team work, public speaking, etc.
As I first came to State College, I did not know how to order in an American restaurant. Penn State has given me a lot and taught me many things in these four years. If I could do it over again, I would still choose Penn State and become a Nittany Lion four years ago.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.