A New Career Path- #ExpressU

Hello everyone! I’m Cameron Kira Thomas, a senior Advertising major in the Art Direction track, and I’m a student brand ambassador for Express. Express is an American fashion retailer with over 600 national stores focusing on high-quality professional and casual apparel. The ambassador program titled #ExpressU gives students the opportunity to host on-campus events, create social media content promoting the brand, and give promotional presentations to fashion related organizations on campus. During my time in this program, I have gained a significant amount of clarity and connections that have helped me determine my path post-grad.

What I’ve gained from this experience:

1. You can’t skip the nitty-gritty to get to the picture perfect content. There is so much that goes into content creation that I never considered. I spent weeks with partner ambassador coordinating shipping and event logistics, most of which never worked in our favor, but we gained valuable troubleshooting knowledge. This was all in preparation for an event that lasted about 30 minutes, but it was my favorite event to host and our most successful.
2. I’ve gained a better understanding of the business side of this program. Our program strategists have been so generous with letting me in on the inner workings of the program. As an Express partner, we are responsible mainly for promoting the brand through events and social media but I’ve always been genuinely curious about how student ambassador programs like this work. The breakdown of their roles and the strategy behind the 50 universities they manage is very well thought out and there is so much encouragement in the company to move upwards.
3. The number one thing I’m most grateful for having gained through this experience is my new network. With the other universities participating in the program and there being at least 2 ambassadors per school, there are at least 100 like-minded, college-aged students to connect with. These ambassadors have similar interest to mine in that we are all involved in some sphere of the fashion industry and enjoy creating branded content. Through these connections, I’ve been able to get in touch with bloggers and photographers I’ve admired for years!

Before this opportunity, I liked to think that I knew exactly what I wanted to do, and it was far away from the world of content creation for the digital space. But now I can’t imagine not working in social media. This program has given me opportunity after opportunity to grow professionally and personally and I’m happy to be able to continue this position for the spring semester!