IMC Grads Get Great Jobs

Take a look at some of the jobs IMC students landed after graduation.

Meet Megan Edelson, a recent graduate from the full-time IMC program.

"There are a lot of things to be nervous about when you’re shifting gears and making the move to go to graduate school.

For Megan Edelson, a Medill IMC graduate, her concerns stemmed from fears that she might not be the right age or have the right amount or type of experience.

But her worries were quickly quelled when she met students both older and younger than her, from a rainbow of different backgrounds that ranged from business to teaching to hotel management.

“That was definitely something I didn’t expect, but it was a great addition to my education,” Edelson said. “It was neat working with people on projects that have 10 more year’s worth experience than me and also people who are fresh out of undergrad and have a fresh look on things. I was afraid everyone was going to be a marketing person and be way more advanced than I was, but it was a nice mix.”

Edelson’s background was in radio and marketing promotions. Having tapped out that career, she was looking for something different, but knew she wanted a marketing degree.

“Once I read about Medill’s IMC, I knew that that’s where I wanted to be,” Edelson said. “It really goes into what it means to be a marketer and all the aspects of marketing, where the other MBA programs I looked at were more general business education with a  few marketing classes.

“If you look at the courses and the residency program and all that the IMC program offered at Medill, it was a lot more involved and in-depth than the other schools.”

As she learned more and more, Edelson realized there were myriad opportunities in marketing, many of which she had never been exposed to. This prompted her to take her residency at Condé Nast in New York, a place she said she may have never applied before she started IMC and gained a competitive skill set to be confident in.

“It really showed me how to use the skills I’d learned in class in the real world,” Edelson said. “It was a great way to get out of class and step back into the real world and still have a quarter left to learn what more I needed to learn.”

Now an integrated marketing manager at Condé Nast, Edelson said the knowledge and skills she gained in the IMC program have enabled her to embrace many facets of marketing, from social networking to crisis communications to producing a quality press release.

“My skills have allowed me to work on all these different projects and not have a problem with any of them, but it also makes my job more interesting because I’m not focusing on one thing,” Edelson said.

“I joke because in undergrad you spent four years and a lot of money, and you come out and you didn’t necessarily learn that much. But this program, I feel like I use the stuff I learned every day.”