For the third year in a row, students went on a week-long trip to a media capital in the United States. This year, half the cohort went to Los Angeles and the other half to New York. This trip is a critical moment in the curriculum of the program to make the connection between theory and practice. Even though we have industry professionals visiting the campus throughout the academic year, the intensity associated with having an entire week of visits to leading companies in the creative sector and conversations with distinguished practitioners brings the educational experience of the program full circle. In the pages that follow you will read the students’ own accounts of the treks as a major moment of professional growth.
This year’s treks were a moment of growth in another, complementary way. For the past three treks, we have organized a networking event that includes Northwestern alumni from different parts of the creative sector and also at different stages in their respective career development. For the first time in the short history of the program, the receptions in both Los Angeles and New York included MSLCE graduates who are starting their professional journeys in each of these labor markets. Additionally. we brought our own alumni back in during the Spring quarter, hosting two graduates who now have full-time jobs in creative enterprises for a session about their internship experiences and how they helped them secure positions after graduation. Bringing our graduates back in is a signal of major growth for the program. We are particularly proud of this development given that MSLCE is not even three years old at this point.
The growth in the learning of our current students, the continued success of our graduates, and the record number of applications already received for fall admission—even though this process is still ongoing—converge to make this Spring a blooming season for MSLCE. So, stay tuned for more updates about this growth in the Summer newsletter!
Pablo J. Boczkowski
Professor, School of Communication
Faculty Director, MSLCE