All about MAIP and our Summer Project

Being an advertising student wasn't always what I wanted to be. In high school, I had a lot of ambition to try different career paths: chemical engineering, computer software design, and graphic design. None of which I eventually chose because of lack of interest later on or that I just didn't feel like I had good enough skills for them. Eventually, I stumbled upon advertising as a major completely by accident during my senior. And the rest was history.

Going to college for a major that I didn't have enough knowledge about was definitely a really daunting experience. However, taking classes during my first year in college and really getting to understand what advertising was, made me realize that this is the career I want.

I first heard about the MAIP program during my junior year of college when the pandemic was still at its height. I remember looking at the application and deciding not to apply because I thought I didn't have much experience to talk about in the first place. I spent the next year trying to find internships that were related to my major to boost my application the following year.

Senior happened and I really had to think about my future prospects and the kind of role I want to see myself in after graduation. So, I revisited the MAIP application and went into it determined to get a role that I wanted to explore further. I realized that I wanted to try out being a Strategist later in my junior year, but I don't have much experience in that area. I took the opportunity of breaking into the Strategic side of advertising through this program.

Joining the program has been an immensely enjoyable, educational, and career-worthy experience. I had the opportunity to meet students across the nation, talk to career professionals, and got great advice from industry leaders that came from agencies I only learned about in my classes.

Separate from my McCann NY internship, MAIP also gives students opportunities to gain hands-on experience during the summer by giving us a campaign pitch project that we present to the client. This year's project was for Disney's Yellow Shoes Creative Group and is dedicated to creating a social campaign for their Disney Dreamers Academy program for high school students.

So far, I've been enjoying collaborating with other MAIP interns for this project since it gives me the opportunity to work with people closer to my age and are having similar educational experiences as me. My group and I really take the time to flesh things out and get creative with the campaign, I think our only concern is how are we going to really integrate a creative social media campaign with a low budget but a long timeline provided to us by the client? I guess this is an exercise that we have to experience later, so it's good that we get to experience this early on in our careers.

I think that this project will really teach me about the importance of teamwork and give me real-world experience in working with a creative agency for a client since I've never had an agency be a client for this kind of project. Well, good luck to our team!