Natalie Greaves

What motivated you to study this course?

I always knew I wanted to study a communications degree but I was unsure as to which area. I remembered an advertising Account Manager speaking to my year 12 cohort and decided it was perfect for me. The course offered a focus in campaign design, copywriting, research and evaluation, accompanied by all the core communication subjects and it sounded too good to be true.

Why did you choose UTS?

I had always heard that UTS utilised a practical experience for its students. Going into it, I knew there was the option for industry experience and that’s exactly what I did. As one of my electives, I chose Professional Internship as a subject. I ended up in a Digital Advertising Agency called TheFARM, writing creative briefs, attending client meetings and learning all about the complex world of social media. I learnt a lot about how social media can facilitate brand awareness in an online sense. I worked with clients such as Johnson&Johnson, Moccona, Sunbeam and The Wiggles, and was exposed to a lot of the account management side of advertising.

The internship had a requirement of 80 hours unpaid work, which wasn’t too difficult to manage with uni and another job, and to make it all worthwhile, I was offered a part time position where I’m still working two days per week. My friends can’t believe my job is spending time on facebook!

What do you most enjoy about your course?

I love the way the degree is tailored to my interests. UTS is the only University I know that has so many areas of communication to specialise in and you always have the option of electives to cross into other areas such as PR or Journalism. I’ve always wanted to study German Language and my degree allowed for this too. I also enjoyed the heavy focus on group work. In an agency, it’s crucial you’re liaising with other team members and clients and my degree set me up for this well.

What would you like to do once you complete your degree?

I’m coming to the final stretch of my degree in Public Communication and am still deciding where to go from here. My options are to remain at TheFARM as an Account Executive, study a year of Honours in Communication or, most likely, study another year at UTS in a Postgraduate Diploma in Media Arts and Production. This will complement much of the work I’ve done at TheFARM and could progress my role into the creative team.