Alumni Ambassador, Katie Webber ’18, UMD Communication at USG

Season’s greetings to my friends at USG! My name is Katie Webber and I am a graduate from the University of Maryland College Park Communication program at USG. While attending classes at USG I served as a student blogger for Around the Grove and as a Student Ambassador. Now I am honored to be the first alumni blogger!

Since I graduated in May 2018, many things have happened in my life. The largest life change happened about two weeks after graduation; I was offered a full-time position as a Marketing Coordinator for an architecture firm in Rockville. I began my job at the beginning of June and have been loving it ever since. Main responsibilities of my job include creating proposals, organizing and planning events, writing website posts, executing photography shoots, and updating data entries.

One of the things I like most about my job is my ability to impact my community and the State of Maryland. My firm works with designing public K-12 schools across Maryland. Some days are spent in the office while others are spent on job sites for meetings or at new schools for photography shoots. I work in Adobe Creative Suite every day at my job, so my Communication classes prepped me very well for this role. I had no problem jumping into InDesign or Photoshop on my first day.

Gaining experience as a student blogger also helped me prepare to write evolution posts for my company’s website on a regular basis. Serving as a Student Ambassador on campus was also a great experience to prep me for planning large-scale corporate events. As I’m writing this, I’m in the midst of planning a huge open house/retirement party at my firm. Having Jen (Cohen) Riehl as a mentor for my two years at USG really helped me gain experience in event coordination and planning. Shout out to you Jen! Although I have sprouted many grey hairs in the past seven months from stress in my new position, I’ve gained a lot of experience working in marketing and the architecture/engineering/construction field.

I love being able to stay connected to everything happening at USG and especially being in the Alumni Ambassadors group. Overall, I think the Alumni Ambassadors is a great initiative that provides opportunities for continual professional growth for students who have graduated from programs offered at USG. Finding a job after graduation was stressful and tedious but attending alumni networking opportunities can help with the process. So I encourage you all to stay connected, engaged and active members of the USG community long after you graduate! You can follow the Alumni Ambassadors on Facebook and LinkedIn, and make sure your contact information is current. This way you will receive Alumni Ambassador communications in a bi-monthly e-newsletter and emails about upcoming events and other fun happenings at USG. I look forward to seeing you at an upcoming event in the New Year!