Download Anthony Gattone Capstone E450 Spring 2010 Career Reflection

Anthony Gattone
Capstone E450
Spring 2010
Career Reflection:
The years I spent pursuing a Bachelor of Arts degree in English are best defined as a personal
renaissance of my skills and ambitions. Before college, I hadn’t given much credit to my
potential: in the classroom, the workplace, and even with other people. An economics class I
took my senior year of high school sparked the first tangible career option, which was that of
becoming a stockbroker. So, the first semester I spent at IUPUI—Indiana University-Purdue
University of Indianapolis—was with the intention of majoring in Finance. And one semester
was all it took for me to realize that my ambitions were hollow. Certainly, it was fun and I was
good at it. But I was only doing it for the money, and even then I knew I couldn’t get into a
career for monetary reasons, alone. The silver lining broke through a pile of old papers from my
adolescence. They were poems, music lyrics, and stories scribbled at home and in class. It was
then, at 11 o’clock on a Friday evening, that I decided to study something I was deeply
passionate about.
The classes I took in my major field, along with a few outside its domain, helped shape and
polish my skills as a creative writer, an analytical thinker, and a communicator, just to name a
few. For instance, I found an affinity for poetry and its invocation of emotion and thematic
message to an audience through the power of thoughtful words, carefully chosen and assembled.
Through multiple classes, including English W403, an advanced poetry writing course, I learned
to recognize my own abilities with creating depth, character, and social awareness through words,
which ranged in topics from the Fourth of July to lynchings in the Southern U.S. Recognizing
limitations was inevitable, but with that knowledge came the complement that those limitations
are not static. With my final portfolio in W403, I had several poems which were originally
composed and thought to be at their pinnacle. But through revision and consideration of notes
Anthony Gattone
Capstone E450
Spring 2010
Career Reflection:
by the professor and other classmates, I found that there is always a way to make something
better. There were several revisions of expanding my angles of approach and weeding out what
didn’t work while sewing what worked better. The final portfolio included some of the best
work I’d written to that date.
Two courses I took outside of my major field were through the school of Journalism, and both
in advertising. The work ethic and creative/analytical thought I’d built beforehand got turned
upside-down as I had to switch my frame of logic from creative writing as an art to creative
writing as a business practice. In Journalism J360, Advertising Copywriting, writing for myself
held a distant third place in priorities for advertising concept. Second place is writing for the
advertisers, or the clients who have to be as confident as I am that the ad will work. First place
goes to the consumers. No matter what anyone in the business says, the consumers’ perception
of the ad ultimately decides if the advertisers’ products will sell more or less.
My classes in poetry and internship experience in copywriting were my strongest aids. The
previous class I’d taken over creative concepts in advertising let me dip my feet in the water with
a final project that involved choosing a stronger ad for a specific product over a weaker one and
also improving the weaker ad. M group received an A+ on our project, and it gave me
confidence in my own skills as a marketing writer. J360 was a much more in depth workshop
that demanded quality on frequent, and sometimes impromptu, copywriting for products and
companies, whether they were imaginary or in the current market. I was taught consistency in
my work, while again recognizing my limitations and learning to them through a better
understanding of the product, the company, and the target consumer. The final project was
graded beyond what was acceptable for academic purposes and asked for a group ad campaign
Anthony Gattone
Capstone E450
Spring 2010
Career Reflection:
that would justifiably be credible in a professional advertising environment. The whole process
of the class was really to make us up to standards for the job.
I also worked two internships while I was in college. They were both for Nuvo Newsweekly,
independent tabloid paper in Indianapolis, IN, and took place from May through August of 2008
and 2009. During the summer of 2008, I worked as a marketing and promotions intern. My
duties included: maintaining and updating Nuvo’s online profiles and memberships, actively
engaging the readers at various events around the city as a Nuvo sponsor, and on several
occasions writing copy for the sales and promotions departments. Various copy included online
promotions for events.
In the summer of 2009, I returned to Nuvo Newsweekly with more specialized assignments. I
would still be participating in events around the city to promote Nuvo, but my days in the office
were spent on tasks of greater responsibility. My Tuesday mornings were spent proofing and
editing the ad layout for the next day’s paper. Due to the tight schedule, I had to develop a quick
eye for any mistakes or irregularities and get them fixed in a timely manner, which I proved that
I had a knack for. One issue of proofing and editing that I learned to deal with was working with
the schedules of each individual in the sales team and of the design team. The second task was
the copywriting and text/design concept of promotional ads, referred to as one-sheets, that were
used to attract and encourage the sale of ad space to businesses around Indianapolis. Each of
these ads was directed to a specific business type, examples being jewelry and music stores, real
estate brokers, and restaurants. I worked fairly independently, save the approval of the sales
department and the Sales Manager on any ads I created. Successfully writing these ads required
extensive research of raw marketing data, effective communication with the sales department
Anthony Gattone
Capstone E450
Spring 2010
Career Reflection:
and the design team, and an accurate concept of what to say to these businesses and how to say it
in both words and image.
Without any hesitation, I would state that my degree in English has prepared me for life
outside the world of academia. Through liberal arts, I have discovered a broader world around
me, gained a deeper understanding of the gears that turn it, and found a voice of my own and the
confidence to take action in its progression. With how complex and confusing life really is, a
voice is the most valuable tool anyone can ask for. It could be the clang of a hammer hitting
nails, or it could crackle over the television speakers to report the daily news. The value of a
voice is that it’s heard, whether by a crowd of thousands or a classroom of ten. I’m ready to use
mine.