beyondwords welcomes today’s guest blog author, Julie Becker. Julie is the Ideation Specialist at Motion Marketing & Media (M3) in Lansing, MI. Julie earned her B.A. in creative advertising at Michigan State University (MSU) and graduated in May 2009. Her work at M3 touches areas of communication, writing, design, and social media marketing.

Julie is passionate about innovative thought and collecting desk tchotchkes. She actively works to connect college students with the downtown Lansing area, most recently as the co-creator of Lansing Breakfast Club. You can find her on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

I’ll never forget it.

I was riding the CATA bus on an overcast day in March, on my way to the Communication Arts building at MSU. It was the spring of 2006 and I couldn’t believe I was about to become a statistic. I never thought it would be me, but there I was, about to change my major.

Journalism was my first love and the reason I chose to attend MSU. Yet here I was abandoning it, trading it in for the political, dirty, oversexed world of (gasp!) advertising.

It wasn’t the transition I was ultimately upset with; it was the fact that the institutionalized world of education forced me to choose one avenue, one path, one passion to study. “How is this even possible?” I thought to myself. “How can I be expected to choose?”

But my passion for design at the time was slightly greater than that of writing (we’re talking fractions). So, I made the switch and vowed to enroll in as many journalism (JRN) classes as my new major would allow. There weren’t many opportunities, but in the fall of 2007 I found myself in JRN 205, Writing for the Media.

My instructor for the course, and now my boss at M3, was Tiffany Dowling. Tiffany was the first, and one of few, to take a professional chance on my abilities as a student.

It was October of my junior year, and I realized I had nothing to lose. Tiffany knew everyone in Lansing, so I laid my cards on the table for her one day after class. (more…)