Christen Rochon is a graduate student in MSU’s Strategic Communication Online Master's Program, or StratCom.
“The only constant in life is change.” – Heraclitus
After my undergrad MSU experience as an advertising major and my first job working at The State News, I was hooked. I’ve always wanted to work in communications and have a curiosity about how the right messaging can influence audiences to engage and react.
I wanted to learn everything about the different aspects of the business and used my career path to navigate as much as I could on my own. After years of working in radio in Detroit, Charlotte and New York, I found myself leaping into the online influencer revolution. During my time as a full-time blogger, I traveled the world and worked with national brands like Ford, Verizon and Samsung. I quickly realized how the industry was changing and I’d either have to change with it or get left behind.
That’s when I discovered StratCom. It’s been about 20 years since I’ve been in school and I was nervous about the online learning experience. But I believed this program would be instrumental in my TV career development and connecting the dots from the early 2000s to today.
It’s a great feeling to know you’re learning relevant knowledge that you can immediately execute in your career every day. The ability to enlist social media listening tools, new storytelling techniques and strategic messaging methods have made me stronger in my profession and a valuable asset to my clients and company.
During my time within the program, I’ve been challenged, changed and experienced growth. I like to believe that thanks to the capstone course (CAS 844), I've improved how I lead within team project settings as well.
Now, with two milestones on the horizon (my 40th birthday in March and master's degree graduation in May), I find myself comfortable at this crossroad of transformation and I couldn’t be more excited to embrace it. After all, change is a good thing!
