A Recent Hopkins Grad's Journey to Landing a Job in London
Name: Allie Schnidman
Year: Class of 2008
Hometown: Ridgefield, CT
Current Residence: London, England
Programs of Study: International studies major, minor in Business (Entrepreneurship and Management)
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It was sometime in my fall semester as a junior at Johns Hopkins when I realized that, while I loved International Studies (the major involves Politics, History, Economics and French – or any language you choose), my first job out of college would not be related to the field. I had taken numerous marketing courses and had decided in my freshmen year that I would be a Business minor (actually named “Entrepreneurship and Management”). Every summer I found an internship to learn the ins and outs of the Public Relations industry in New York City, and by my senior year, I knew I would apply for full-time jobs in the marketing industry.
Yet, it was actually in the spring semester of my senior year that I discovered a new passion. In Professor Leslie Kendrick’s “Advertising and Promotion” course, I signed up to try a new role in our Advertising firm, named “HopComm.” The class was broken up into teams for Public Relations, Event Planning, Advertising/Creative Design, Marketing Research and Finance, which all worked together on a marketing campaign for a real paying client – The Navy’s HPSP. Although, I already had experience in Public Relations and Event Planning, I decided to try something new and signed up as the Marketing Research Department Manager.
My role as the Marketing Research Department Manager of HopComm was a challenging one, but a truly valuable experience. From our work, I learned how to write quantitative studies targeted to our market to gain feedback before and after our marketing campaign. In addition, I learned how to conduct in-depth interviews and how to turn response data into presentable material. My team worked hard and helped discover that our marketing campaign was a huge success among students at Johns Hopkins: our work made many students more aware of our client and the Navy’s HPSP we were promoting. From this Advertising and Promotion course, I gained both academic experience with marketing research and a job in the industry.
It was because of the American Marketing Association's Student Job Workshop that I learned about my first job out of college. During this networking event in April, I met with a few Hopkins alumni who worked for marketing firms and one, in particular, recruited me to work for his firm – The Futures Company. I learned even more about marketing research in my first year on the job and can now work directly with a client to design a custom questionnaire, manage field work, analyze data and write custom reports to present to our clients.
And, to top it off, I was transferred to The Futures Company’s London office in my second year. I’ve been in the United Kingdom for less than two weeks, and I am LOVING this experience! While I didn’t want to go into politics or apply for typical “International Studies” jobs, I still wanted to somehow make my career international, and I have. I managed to combine my passion for my business minor (focused on marketing) as well as my major (International Studies) and I could not have done this without all of the marketing courses offered at Johns Hopkins (and someday, I hope they offer more and more!)
Lastly – here is a picture of my new office building in London! Well, actually, it’s off to the left as I was too busy focusing on half of Tower Bridge in the distance (just like that guy on the bike!)
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