The foundation of any role in the communications industry is strong writing skills, and for Jesef Williams, IMC ‘22, he gained this through his seven-year stint as a journalist. Hard experience as Jesef called it, he spent years covering municipal government, law enforcement, news features, sports and opinionated content before making the switch to public relations in 2013.
“I shifted over to the healthcare and academic medicine sectors, and within two years of working professionally in that realm, I knew I wanted to go back and acquire the foundational knowledge and science behind a lot of this work that I was now engaging in,” Jesef said.
After finding the IMC program in 2015, Jesef knew the program filled in his knowledge gaps but had to find the right time in his professional and personal life to enroll. In 2020, he decided it was time. He spent two years in the IMC program, diving in and engaging with the content in his courses and with peers and instructors. He found that the work in the program reflected his roles and responsibilities in the industry, so he could learn concepts and apply them the next day in his role.
One of his favorite parts of the program was being able to customize his degree to his timeline and his interests. Jesef liked the challenge of delving into different areas and topics with the elective courses like higher education marketing and public relations strategy which he could apply to his current role. Overall, the program has helped him feel confident to make career leaps and more confident in his role.
“This degree really signifies a major goal for me, and it also symbolizes a leap in terms of my foundational knowledge, my skill set, my expertise in the world of public relations, marketing, branding and the like, and coming from a newspaper journalism background with a degree in journalism, this master's is just the perfect complement to that,” Jesef said. “I am more confident. I am more competent and just more equipped to now go out into the world and continue to manifest more of my goals as they pertain to communications, editing, writing and marketing.”
I am more confident. I am more competent and just more equipped to now go out into the world and continue to manifest more of my goals as they pertain to communications, editing, writing and marketing. Jesef Williams