The name escapes her at the moment but the impact Stephanie Rosa’s Rhetoric 105 professor had on her us something she’ll never forget.
“I just spent the past 20 minutes searching for her name online and through old emails, but alas, I could not find it. That woman changed my life,” Rosa (BS '10, advertising) says from Denver.
“In her course, she taught the class how to look beyond advertisements and how to truly read into them and what they were selling. That portion of her course taught me about the world of advertising, marketing and sales and it pulled something out of me.
“I became super involved in AAF after her course and became an advertising major, which has helped shape my life entirely up to this point.
“Another person worth mentioning is Dawn Longfellow at Illini Media. Dawn also changed my life.
“In 2008, I came onboard as a sales rep for WPGU-FM and Dawn was leading the brand new The217.com. Long story short: I spent many hours every week for years learning about sales and digital marketing/advertising. That too shaped my life.
“I learned sales tactics and I started to understand the world wide web, how to use it, and how to make money. Today, I have utilized every single skill that I learned from Dawn and at Illini Media, and it has helped me develop both companies that I own today.
“I learned more at my time at Illini Media than I did in my college courses.”
