Cary from Centralia - M.S. Professional Media Management

I'm Cary Bryant. I'm from Centralia, Illinois and I'm an alumni from SIUC's School of Journalism.

Currently, right now I'm a first-year grad student in the College of Mass Communication and my focus is MS - Professional Media Management with an emphasis in New Media and Social Media. 

  In my undergrad, I did Journalism Digital Communication.

When I came into the program there were not very many students going into it and I was really interested in doing web design and doing online journalism and writing for a newspaper.

I got into web design, graphic design, shooting video, shooting photos, pretty much becoming a well-rounded multimedia producer for a newspaper.

When newspapers hire reporters these days, they want them to do it all.  They want them to shoot video and take photos, and be able to write a great story.

Probably the most beneficial class that got me on to the track of being in my future career was MCMA 396.  It was offered through Journalism professor Anita Stoner and it taught you the basics of web design and writing for online journalism.

The summer before I graduated from SIU with my undergrad I was currently working on the Shawnee Forest Project through the School of Journalism.  It was a project that sent students out in to the Shawnee Forest to get stories and video and photos of how beautiful the forest is. It was great for me to get into the project. I helped design the website and maintain it and get students to work together to get stuff to put on this website and also the book.

For my final undergrad project before I could graduate, I redesigned the School of Journalism website, and it was great to learn more about each specialization and work with students from each area to get enough content for the web site that would make it more beneficial and attractive to future students.

Currently, I'm a webmaster for the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute on campus. We're a non-profit organization that brings speakers to campus and work on important issues in the community and at the state level.

I believe my undergrad degree here provided such a great stepping stone to go for my master's. 

I came into the program fully advanced, I actually didn't have to take some classes because I was so proficient to go past the basic classes.

When I finish with my master's from SIU, I plan to go on and either  start my own online graphics company and web design company or I plan to work in media relations.

Social media is becoming very popular with companies now and I would love to handle that for a local company or somewhere in Illinois.