A trip to the East Coast offered Creative Media and Arts students an opportunity to explore career possibilities beyond Toronto, connect with industry professionals and gain first-hand experience in the advertising and marketing industry.
Riddell Murcia, program coordinator for Advertising and Marketing Communications, said the experience was transformative for students, allowing them to strengthen their professional skills while building connections with their classmates outside the classroom.
“It allows them to see opportunities that are beyond Toronto. We met a lot of big names at Reddit, for example, but we've also met people who were just starting out, people that were just launching their marketing tech companies,” he said.
Murcia said Humber’s program prepares students for the different roles and responsibilities.
Within the advertising industry, including account management, coordination and strategy.
“We focus on training students to be account managers, coordinators and strategizers because we have separate roles in advertising,” he said. “We need to cover the entire industry because you can’t coordinate or strategize if you don't necessarily know how everything works.”
Through a combination of media, data and research courses, students developed a broad understanding of the industry and the skills needed to navigate its different sectors.
"We have classes from social media to content to account planning to analytics to market research to social media, public relations, copywriting, and overall, everything that has to do with the advertising industry,” he said.
For Murcia, providing students with opportunities to apply those skills outside the classroom is an important part of their education. He encourages students to approach every opportunity with confidence, regardless of how big or how small their goals may be.
“Take the opportunity with the mentality that you're going to dominate,” he said. “Now, when I say domination, I don't mean that you are going to take over everybody’s role. I think that the more realistic you can be with a goal and even set up a small goal for yourself, when you go to opportunities like this, the better.”
He said stepping outside one’s comfort zone can begin with something as simple as introducing yourself to new people.
“Sometimes we talk to students about ‘hey, maybe you are not as comfortable talking to a lot of people, maybe your small goal is just to shake hands with three new people,’ and that will lead to success,” he said.
Talaynah Douglas, an Advertising and Marketing Communications student, said her path to the program began in graphic design. After exploring her interests, she realized marketing was a better fit for her future.
“Compared to the other students who just knew that they wanted to do this right away, I feel like it was better for me to kind of develop that love and passion for things like marketing and like social media,” she said.
Having never visited Halifax before, Douglas said the trip allowed her to combine professional development with the opportunity to explore a new city.
“I hadn’t been to Halifax before, and it was a really pretty place,” she said. “My family was telling me about it prior, and it was nice to go for networking while getting to experience sightseeing.”
Douglas also had the chance to connect with industry professionals and learn more about developments in the field.
“If I didn’t go, I would have missed a lot of good information about what's happening in our industry, so I'm really grateful for that,” she said.
One of her biggest highlights was meeting Nova Scotia Minister of Communications Leah Martin, whose leadership and representation left a lasting impression.
“Meeting her was really nice, and she has a very strong position of power,” she said. “She is an Indigenous woman who is very inspiring.”
Classmate Alexa Bolis said Humber's emphasis on hands-on learning was one of the main reasons she chose the program.
After initially studying psychology and working part-time at Costco, Bolis became interested in the marketing side of business, particularly the opportunity to work on campaigns and collaborate with others.
“I found the program at Humber Polytechnic, Lakeshore campus and saw that they had the marketing advertising program, and I think what drew my eyes the most is how much hands-on learning there was,” she said.
Although attending conferences and networking events was initially intimidating, Bolis said the skills she developed through Humber’s courses helped her navigate the experience.
“I didn't really know how to go about it, but again, in classes, they teach us that,” she said. “It was really cool to put that skill into the real world when it came to conferences.”
Beyond the professional connections, the trip also strengthened relationships among classmates. Bolis said the experience helped create a stronger sense of community within the program, with students continuing to support one another academically.
Bolis said one of the most significant outcomes of the trip was recognizing her own potential and becoming more confident in a professional setting.
“Realizing how much confidence I had, I think that was my biggest takeaway from this trip was realizing how much I can do outside in the world when it comes to conferences and networking, workshops, like with Meta ads and more,” she said.
