Hello everyone and welcome to my blog! I am so excited you’re here.
A little bit about me:
My name is Mara Canning and I am a senior studying strategic communication at Liberty University. I have a passion for social media, graphic design, and anything creative.
Growing up, I was always the person who said “I don’t know” when people asked me what I wanted to do, or what I wanted to study in college. To be honest, I didn’t even know where I wanted to go to college until the summer before my freshman year. I had taken a gap year after high school and still felt clueless. However, God led me to Liberty, unexpectedly, and I made the decision to attend here last minute.
I picked this major not knowing much about it, but soon fell in love with the classes and the fact I didn’t have to write many essays anymore. Going into this field of study I expected it to be much different than what it turned out to be. I especially enjoyed seeing the way that strategic communication allowed me to tell stories through my work.
While a large part of this major does involve marketing, much of what I’ve learned has also been about how people make decisions on what to buy, how to persuade people, and what tends to appeal to specific groups. I originally debated between psychology and communication for my major, and found the ways that these two fields relate to each other to be fascinating.
My lack of direction for my future, which first felt like a struggle, turned out to be a unique opportunity to try many different things.
Where I am now:
I currently work at the Liberty Champion managing their website. This past semester I worked there as an intern doing everything from copy editing to helping create social media content. This helped me find out what I really enjoyed doing. I am so grateful for the chance I got to explore different parts of the job and see what worked best for me personally. This isn’t something I’ll be able to do in any job, but it was such a valuable experience as I figure out what I want to do with my future. As I mentioned earlier, I love anything creative. I hadn’t done much creative work, particularly for social media, before starting with the Champion, but it is now something I really enjoy doing.
My hope is to use this in the future to work at a nonprofit organization or a church. I have been a part of a college ministry called Campus Outreach for three years now and this has inspired me to work in this area after I graduate. I have made so many amazing friends throughout my time with CO and it has been such a blessing in my life.
In everything I do, I strive to communicate with compassion, empathy, and confidence. In my professional life I hope to be open to criticism and allow a space for accountability. I believe it is incredibly important to be vulnerable in all your dealings with others, whether personal or professional, and I hope to reflect this in all my work.
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