Nancy Golding on Life Before and After Mohawk's PR Program

Mohawk Public Relations Graduate from 2012, Nancy Golding, is now a
Marketing Assistant at Reliable Insurance Company.

Nancy was uncertain about earning a degree in Marketing Management at the University of Guelph rather than pursuing her academic true love: English Literature. Unfortunately, the Marketing Management program did not allow Nancy to minor in any other subjects, and she used electives for pursuing interests in philosophy,  cultural studies, and, of course, English Lit.

In fourth year, graduate school was the first task on Nancy’s agenda. Nancy explored the idea of a Masters program in Marketing, but she also asked a guidance councillor what else she could do, given that she really liked English. The councillor suggested Public Relations and Communications courses and told Nancy that the Mohawk PR program is perceived just as highly as a Masters in Communications.

After reviewing PR courses at Sheridan, Humber, McMaster, and U of T, it was Tim who really sold her on Mohawk’s program. He was prompt in returning her email and provided detailed responses to her questions, including what jobs post grads were doing  and how well the program was regarded. “The success stories of past students were comforting to hear and Tim was really in helpful in providing details of the course” says Nancy. “The other programs I considered seemed cold and faceless in comparison and I was unsure of them.” She also added that other programs were far away and expensive.

The program was exciting, informative, and hands on, and Nancy was ready to apply these skills as an intern at the Hamilton SPCA. Although Nancy is an avid animal lover, it turned out there were not as many opportunities for her to learn about professional communications as she initially expected and she was mostly involved in writing pet descriptions. Nancy pursued another internship at the MS Society where she learned how to run a photo contest on social media (using Flikr), effectively use Flikr as a visual communications tool, and rules and processes behind organizing and maintaining social media contests. She developed advertising/marketing skills in creating promotional flyers for the contest and the MS Society’s annual MS Walk. After lots of research, she created a social media handbook for the society to use in the future.

Graduation day has come and gone, and Nancy is now working as Marketing Assistant at Reliable Life Insurance Company located in downtown Hamilton: www.reliablelifeinsurance.com. She works in both business to business and business to consumer communications: it is Nancy’s job to create advertising and informational materials for travel agents as well as the end consumer. She assists in marketing and social marketing projects as well as developing sales kits and digital files. Nancy also gets to put her writing skills to use by creating company newsletters and editing promotional materials.

The Print, Design, and Application course was perhaps one of the most useful elements of the Mohawk PR Program to be applied to Nancy’s current work.  Nancy says “this course made me discover my love for graphic design.” The Reliable Life Insurance Company actually purchased Adobe Creative Suite because Nancy knew how to use the programs and it would allow her to develop better communication materials for the company. Nancy is further improving her skill set by taking an online course at Mohawk College that teaches HTML. She will be able to refine the company’s website design and get a handle on programing language.

Nancy has grown away from the agency environment and has set her sights on the big city. She has always wanted to live in Toronto, despite the cost of living, and would like to pursue senior marketing/communications positions in the financial and insurance industry, especially now that she has experience working in the field of insurance.