During the two-day trip, 36 School of Communications students visited media outlets and Elon alumni in Atlanta as part of their first-year fellows experience.
During the last weekend of October, 36 first-year School of Communications Fellows traveled to Atlanta to tour media outlets and network with communications professionals, including several Elon alumni.
From Oct. 24-26, students traveled with Assistant Professor of Sport Management David Bockino and Instructor in Journalism Colin Donohue, and were accompanied by senior School of Communications Fellows Matt Reichenbach ’19 and Katie Kane ’19.
The students were split into groups to tour various companies based on their major of interest. Students visited InterContinental Hotels Group, Mercedes-Benz Stadium and CNN. At all three stops, students were able to connect with Elon alumni.
Following their tour at CNN, students met with Raymond Wright ’06, who works as a post-production producer for the news outlet. Students interested in the sports industry visited with Byron Ross ’18 and Taylor Adler ’17 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, home of the Atlanta Falcons and Atlanta United. Ross is a fan services associate for the NFL franchise and Adler serves as a group sales executive for the MLS organization. Lastly, a group of students visited IHG where they met with Trey Newstedt ’13, a brand communications specialist for the hotel company.
There was a new addition to this fall’s Atlanta tour: all of the first-year Communications Fellows visited IBM’s Atlanta office, where they spoke with alumna Lauren Lee ’06. As head of client strategy, Lee leads a sales strategy team responsible for partnering with national sales teams to understand strategic client needs.
“Our visit to IBM provided us with a fantastic introduction to the world of artificial intelligence and taught us how new technology is affecting every one of our majors,” said Bockino, who serves as the Communications Fellows program director.
Lee and colleagues taught students about mobile app development and the applications of AI. Students were also able to tour the Weather Channel’s virtual studio.
Students also had dinner with seven Elon alumni at Dantanna’s Downtown in the CNN Center.
To finish their trip, the group visited the World of Coca-Cola and the College Football Hall of Fame.
This fall, the School of Communications welcomed 36 Fellows, the largest group of Fellows since the program’s inception. There are 31 students pursuing degrees in traditional communications majors – strategic communications, journalism, cinema and television arts, communication design and media analytics. Six Fellows are also majoring in sport management. This is the second year sport management students have been a part of the Communications Fellows program. For more information about the Fellows program, visit Elon’s Fellows website.