When I first heard that there was going to be a pilot program where Temple advertising students got the opportunity to GO Into a Philadelphia high school to teach advertising during an after school workshop, I was thrilled!! I couldn’t think of a more perfect opportunity for me. I also thought about teaching but I placed teaching on the back burner once I found out about the world of advertising. I never thought I could have the best of both worlds. As soon as I signed up for the course, I began thinking of lesson plans, activities, and different ways to talk to the students in a way that was less formal, but I was still teaching. The anticipation grew and grew and finally the first Monday came. We took the subway to Lombard South and walked to 11th and Catherine. We, as Temple students had no idea what to expect. We had no idea how many students would show on the first day. We were a little discouraged to see less than ten high school students. We didn’t worry too much, the next class had more students and from then on the class size fluctuated between eight and twelve students.

We taught the students about creative briefs, the importance of research, how to strategize based on the research, and how to brainstorm for creative. This class has been able to give me somewhat of an idea what teaching at high school level is like. I have been able to determine my future career goals based on this class. I plan to work at an advertising agency for about five years and then go back to school to get my teaching degree. My goal is to try to find a high school that would be interested in adopting a new elective or “unified arts” where I can teach advertising. I would like to teach high school students because they are still trying to find out who they are and what they want to be when they grow up. I want to introduce advertising to students early because a lot of high school students do not know about advertising as a career choice; therefore, they don’t hear about it until they have already chosen a major and happen to take advertising as an elective, like I did. If this does not work and I cannot find a high school that would be willing, I will become an assistant professor and maybe work part time at an agency.

Basically, I never would have realized that I could have my cake and eat it too if I never signed up for this class. It has been the best opportunity for me here at Temple.