CDAE Professor David Conner’s CDAE 168 (Marketing for Community Entrepreneurs) class welcomed back former student and course Teaching Assistant (TA) Emma Arian as a guest speaker on December 6, 2022. Emma is currently the marketing and promotions manager for three local organizations: Vermont Brewers Association, Vermont Fresh Network and DigInVT. She took the class in Fall 2018 and was the TA in Fall 2019, before graduating with a degree in community entrepreneurship in 2020. Emma discussed her current job responsibilities, including grant writing and fulfillment, event planning, social media campaigns, newsletter writing and blogging.
Her advice to students was to build and maintain networks, with business contacts and mentors like faculty members. Vermont is tiny and from my experience you will get jobs through word of mouth, recommendations, and outreach over sending in your resume to a bunch of places without connections, she stated. Emma also suggested having one or more internships, particularly emphasizing the value of her internship with Vermont Tortilla, gained after their co-owner April Moulaert’s guest presentation in CDAE 168.
CDAE 168 students expressed how relevant and relatable the talk was, and the value of hearing from a recent alum applying skills and knowledge gained in her coursework.