Professional Goals
My goals in the journalism field include working as an intern at NPR in Washington DC. This opportunity is open to students who have completed their degree. I plan to go to graduate school, but if my gap year can be filled with this position I know it would be life-changing.
To achieve this goal I will gain more writing experience by joining the Daily Aztec come Fall 2021, continue to take my studies seriously and join KCR college radio.
Internship Experince
In my internship at the SDSU School of Journalism and Professional Studies, I’ve contributed to the promotion of various programs and events hosted by the school. This has included the Beyond JMS series, in which various guest speakers were featured in free webinars to educate students on LinkedIn, search engine optimization and more. I also am in the process and making a video that will pair with a full-length story on some of the research JMS professors have been conducting.
I now have a deeper understanding of the work that goes into running a successful social media presence for an organization. When my future courses bring up these topics, I believe I will already have an understanding of their importance.
Leverage agile frameworks to provide a robust synopsis for high level overviews. Iterative approaches to corporate strategy foster collaborative thinking to further the overall value proposition. Organically grow the holistic world view of disruptive innovation.
My Latest Work
Shen Article
Engagement isn’t just a way for influencers to measure their social media presence. San Diego State Professor Hongmei Shen has worked on defining engagement to measure alumni engagement and explore its importance. She did this work in a journal published with former San Diego State Professor Bey-Ling Sha in the Public Relations Review. This 2020 study has strong implications in the public relations world - affecting both theory and method. Universities and their programs could also benefit from this research.
While there is growing research on defining engagement, there is still debate in the academic community. There has also been little academic work focusing on alumni engagement beyond financial contributions to the school.
“A lot of it is really functionalist. They are trying to benefit from having a relationship with alumni.” Shen said over a video call. “Traditionally, how a lot of the research has been driven by is that financial interest.” There are studies that argue engagement is more than that, but they’re in the minority.
“You can’t make people give. If you are trying too hard to get people to donate, that's not going to really get the same results.” Shen said. “Why don’t you just focus on building better relationships? Why don’t you just focus on really benefiting the alumni? Why don’t you provide future learning opportunities like the Beyond JMS series?”
Beyond JMS is a webinar series hosted by the SDSU School of Journalism and Media Studies. New York Times bestseller, HBO documentary filmmaker and SDSU alumni Armen Keteyian kicked off the series with a Conversation discussing his work covering Tiger Woods. Other events have included LinkedIn advice and discussions on artificial intelligence and representations of race and gender in Hollywood. Future events include webinars on the intersection of social justice and sports, search engine optimization and search engine optimization. This series is free and open to everyone. For more information visit our website here.
Professor Shen said this program is an example of benefiting the alumni, “It’s about relationship building. It's about engaging with different audiences, not just about getting money out of our audiences or getting something out of them. It’s about mutual beneficial relationship building.”
The definition of engagement developed in this study focuses on more than monetary donations. Part of the study included asking college alumni what alumni engagement means to them. “Them giving us these answers really helped us build the framework for what truly constitutes alumni engagement,” Cheng said. In this process, two main themes emerged: gratitude and continued post-graduation relationships. Often these post-graduation relationships revolved around students feeling connected to faculty or going to former faculty for advice.
One way Professor Shen helps foster these relationships is by creating Facebook groups for her classes or joining the groups her students create on social media. “That's really part of the reason why I became a professor: to stay connected and to see the growth and development of different students,” Cheng said. She has stayed in touch with many former students over the years, “I see them getting married, I see them having kids. I see them moving to different cities, pursuing their dream jobs.”
Professor Cheng also mentioned going over the work of and providing feedback to a former student who was pursuing grad school at a different school. She will also take notice when students are looking for work and has sent them positions she’s aware of.
“I feel it's helping my work, but it's also sort of me helping them. And again it goes back to those mutually beneficial relationships. But also, you become friends and some of them really become my lifelong friends.” Cheng said. “Some of them we go out and eat together - before COVID of course.”
This research adds to the academic work done on alumni engagement, but also has direct implications for SDSU in various ways. This study, “pushes research in a field forward, and that helps the reputation of the university. Our PR Program is a nationally recognized PR program, not only because of the students who we produce - these are really high caliber students that we produce - but also because of the scholarship the PR professors… produce.” Cheng said. “Our scholarship informs practice. Our scholarship informs teaching. Our scholarship also enhances [our] university's reputation as a research institution. And it further pushes the theoretical boundaries of PR scholarship as a field.”
While there is growing research on defining engagement, there is still debate in the academic community. There has also been little academic work focusing on alumni engagement beyond financial contributions to the school.
“A lot of it is really functionalist. They are trying to benefit from having a relationship with alumni.” Shen said over a video call. “Traditionally, how a lot of the research has been driven by is that financial interest.” There are studies that argue engagement is more than that, but they’re in the minority.
“You can’t make people give. If you are trying too hard to get people to donate, that's not going to really get the same results.” Shen said. “Why don’t you just focus on building better relationships? Why don’t you just focus on really benefiting the alumni? Why don’t you provide future learning opportunities like the Beyond JMS series?”
Beyond JMS is a webinar series hosted by the SDSU School of Journalism and Media Studies. New York Times bestseller, HBO documentary filmmaker and SDSU alumni Armen Keteyian kicked off the series with a Conversation discussing his work covering Tiger Woods. Other events have included LinkedIn advice and discussions on artificial intelligence and representations of race and gender in Hollywood. Future events include webinars on the intersection of social justice and sports, search engine optimization and search engine optimization. This series is free and open to everyone. For more information visit our website here.
Professor Shen said this program is an example of benefiting the alumni, “It’s about relationship building. It's about engaging with different audiences, not just about getting money out of our audiences or getting something out of them. It’s about mutual beneficial relationship building.”
The definition of engagement developed in this study focuses on more than monetary donations. Part of the study included asking college alumni what alumni engagement means to them. “Them giving us these answers really helped us build the framework for what truly constitutes alumni engagement,” Cheng said. In this process, two main themes emerged: gratitude and continued post-graduation relationships. Often these post-graduation relationships revolved around students feeling connected to faculty or going to former faculty for advice.
One way Professor Shen helps foster these relationships is by creating Facebook groups for her classes or joining the groups her students create on social media. “That's really part of the reason why I became a professor: to stay connected and to see the growth and development of different students,” Cheng said. She has stayed in touch with many former students over the years, “I see them getting married, I see them having kids. I see them moving to different cities, pursuing their dream jobs.”
Professor Cheng also mentioned going over the work of and providing feedback to a former student who was pursuing grad school at a different school. She will also take notice when students are looking for work and has sent them positions she’s aware of.
“I feel it's helping my work, but it's also sort of me helping them. And again it goes back to those mutually beneficial relationships. But also, you become friends and some of them really become my lifelong friends.” Cheng said. “Some of them we go out and eat together - before COVID of course.”
This research adds to the academic work done on alumni engagement, but also has direct implications for SDSU in various ways. This study, “pushes research in a field forward, and that helps the reputation of the university. Our PR Program is a nationally recognized PR program, not only because of the students who we produce - these are really high caliber students that we produce - but also because of the scholarship the PR professors… produce.” Cheng said. “Our scholarship informs practice. Our scholarship informs teaching. Our scholarship also enhances [our] university's reputation as a research institution. And it further pushes the theoretical boundaries of PR scholarship as a field.”
Grad Program Flyer
Work in progress, this is not a final copy.
JMSSummerCourses
