Student Resources
Summer Learning Loss
Although it is a good idea to take a bit of a break during summer, travel, catch up with friends, and binge your favorite shows, beware of Summer Learning Loss. Research shows “if you don’t use it, you lose it” where students start to backslide in what they know over the summer because they aren’t practicing it. Conversely, students who stay engaged over the Summer actually start the next semester ahead rather than having to reactivate their brains and play catch up.
This page is a number of ways to stay engaged over the summer. Some of it is online training, certifications, books, or just videos I like. I hope to be updating it pretty regularly.
As we often discuss in class, your degree will be a big part of helping you get a job, however, you’re smart to supplement it with additional training, certifications, and general knowledge so that you can position yourself ahead of everyone else who limited their learning to what they experienced in class.
Here are some ideas of how you can stand out. Find the ones that sound interesting to you, set some goals for yourself to get a few done over the summer, stay engaged, and keep in touch!
Online Training and Certifications
Note: Many of the companies create these trainings as a way to entice users to sign up for their products. Expect there to be some subtle soft-selling throughout any of them, but make note of what is general knowledge versus product-specific features.
Tutorials broken into 5-10 minute sections totaling roughly 5 hours that guide through the basics of content marketing, including formatting for online copywriting, SEO fundamentals, and more. I recommend this for EVERYONE because it touches on a lot of different areas to help have a broader understanding of content marketing, which is a throughline for many of the things we do, particularly in PR.
This is an incredibly rich resource with nearly limitless things that can be learned. Note that you will likely take Google Analytics in your Research class, however, there is SO much to be learned about how Advertising and PR teams can take advantage of one of the largest platforms in the world. Most of the sections offer certifications, however they technology changes so fast, most of them expire after a year or two. These certifications will be a huge resource to get internships, but you may need to re-visit them to refresh your certification when on the job hunt as a Senior.
- Google Ads – Numerous certifications on display ads, shopping ads, measurement, etc.
- Google Analytics Academy – “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it”; learn how to do both.
- Google Marketing Platform – Learn the fundamentals of Google’s marketing platforms
- Google Ad Manager – Learn how to drive advertising revenue with Google Ad Manager
- Google My Business – Great information for helping individual businesses, particularly local businesses
- YouTube – Learn about content ownership, asset monetization, creative essentials, and more
- Waze Academy – Ever noticed the promoted locations on Waze? Learn how to do that.
Learn how to use Excel like a boss. Figure out how to format things in Word to make yourself look like a wizard. Inspire awe in peers, instructors, and employers alike with your mad PowerPoint abilities. These may sound basic, and you may think you know how to use them, but getting these skills a little bit more refined can take you a LONG way, particularly if you want to work in Accounts Services.
If you are interested in dabbling in learning web coding, this is an interesting resource. FreeCodeCamp has 800+ hours of training starting from very, very beginner to pretty advanced. Students who work through the training then can get hands-on experience by working on projects for nonprofits. There are also a few certifications on HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc.
This is a great resource for general knowledge, although it typically won’t go as in-depth as some of the training directly on the platform (Google, Facebook, etc.). It is a helpful place to get started with some basic training that may help you discover what you’re interested in and want to learn more on the platforms themselves.
Facebook has created a regularly updated training series on how to use the platform from a business perspective. A lot of insights on features you may not know about, as well as better understanding the audience tools. Since Facebook owns Instagram, many of these insights apply there as well. There are also different levels of Facebook Marketing Certificates through this training, however they may cost money.
A free online learning tool with courses created by University professors around the world. Although the classes are free, you can pay $30-$100 to take the exams and get the “skill certifications”, which may have some value when positioning yourself for internships. A few you might consider are Excel, Digital Marketing Specialization, Python for Everybody (particularly if you are a Digital Culture and Data Analytics Minor wanting to get some base knowledge), or even just Learning How to Learn.
Shopify is one of the largest eCommerce platforms in the world. I haven’t used Shopify Academy in some time, so I need to go back and revisit their offerings, however they have historically offered all kinds of insights on eCommerce best practices, email marketing campaigns, basic-coding for building a Shopify site, analytics, and more. It looks like there is also a certification process, although I’m not sure what all that entails. Shopify is one of the largest eCommerce platforms in the world. I haven’t used Shopify Academy in some time, so I need to go back and revisit their offerings, however they have historically offered all kinds of insights on eCommerce best practices, email marketing campaigns, basic-coding for building a Shopify site, analytics, and more. It looks like there is also a certification process, although I’m not sure what all that entails.
SEMRush is an SEO research tool that offers several free trainings on some of the basics of what they have to offer. Bonus: There are a number of SEMRush certifications you can get for free that will look pretty impressive on your resume.
This is a pretty specific one and requires you to have a bit of understanding of both SEO and Excel prior, however, this is an incredibly useful skill and you’ll find that these skills weave themselves into a lot of other areas. Not many communicators can do this level of analysis and not many people who can do this level of analysis consider themselves extroverts, so you can find a very marketable niche with this skill.
Recommended Readings
Books About Advertising/Marketing
Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath
I love this book and re-read it once every few years. It’s a great guide for really making you think more critically about why someone would care enough about something to remember it with tips on how to be more successful in helping people remember your ideas.
Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This: The Classic Guide to Creating Great Ads by Luke Sullivan
A primer on advertising, particularly if you are a copywriter. There’s a good blend of history, humor, and professional insights that make this a fun read with a lot to take away from it.
Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy
Considered an industry-standard if you are wanting to go into Advertising. Although a lot has changed in the way that we deliver advertising since the book was written, this is still an invaluable collection of insights from one of the greatest Advertisers to ever live.
Trust Me, I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator by Ryan Holiday
This one is a little dark, but there are pieces of it that are very eye-opening about publicity and digital marketing. Ryan Holiday is the former Director of Marketing for American Apparel, and the first half reads like a confessional of everything he did that was dishonest with the second half reading like a burn book, calling out everyone who ever did him wrong in the same way.
Books About Leadership
Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek
This book gets you thinking about things in a different way, better understanding “Why” people do things, and how you can more intentionally reach people at a core level by doing things that matter. He had a viral TEDTalk back in 2014 that gives a glimpse at the type of information in the book.
Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t by Simon Sinek
The follow up to Start With Why, Leaders Eat Last takes an analytical view at inspiring leaders and what characteristics made them that way. Perhaps one of my favorite chapters is about the various brain chemicals, why we developed them from an evolutionary standpoint, and how they impact our interactions. Written in a very enjoyable style, and the audiobook versions of both books are ready by the author. I re-listen to this book every few years because I just really enjoy it.
Tribes: We Need You To Lead Us by Seth Godin
Short book, pretty quick read. It is more-or-less a collection of blog posts from Seth Godin’s popular leadership and marketing blog, so every chapter is a collection of short entries to make you think about leading from where you are. It’s great for understanding how titles aren’t what make great leaders and it’s hard not to get fired-up about wanting to go do something after reading it. I’ve sent this book to several people. I do NOT recommend this one as an audiobook, as it is read by the author and… well… maybe it shouldn’t be.
Permission to Screw Up: How I Learned to Lead By Doing (Almost) Everything Wrong by Kristen Hadeed
If you are a perfectionist, you probably want to read this book. It’s a fun and casual account of a college student who started her own business that became unexpectedly successful and how she learned to turn failure into learning moments rather than being discouraged by things going differently than she had planned.
Books With Intriguing Insights
Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions by Dan Ariely
Behavioral Economics is a fascinating area of study, particularly if you are minoring in Sociology or Phycology. The book features some research, as it is written by a professor, but it is pretty fascinating and shared in an interesting way. Great insights, but I actually preferred this one as an audiobook since it was a little drier based on all of the research insights.
Rejection Proof: How I Beat Fear and Became Invincible Through 100 Days of Rejection by Jia Jiang
If you are interested in sales and/or have a fear of rejection, this is a great book and a lot of fun. The true story is a personal account of a man starting is own business with a crippling fear of rejection. He starts a “100 Day Rejection Challenge” to try to thicken his skin, where he seeks out rejection by making ridiculous requests with the intent of being rejected, but learns a lot about how people make decisions and why things aren’t always as they seem.
Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
This book exploded my brain. There are many fascinating things to be learned about opportunity, success, and failure, often that we don’t have much impact on. By learning what they are and why they work that way, you start to identify your own opportunities more easily. Scholars criticize it a bit as “Pop Science” rather than “Hard Science”, but that also makes it much, much more readable.
David & Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants by Malcolm Gladwell
Another book by Gladwell that’s really pretty interesting. Did you know some of the most successful people in history were dyslexic? What do you think that is? This book looks at understanding perceived disadvantages and how people, modern and historically, have utilized those disadvantages to catapult their success.