Hello, my name is...

My name is Kristen Trojan and I graduated from Texas State in December 2010 with my bachelor's degree in Public Relations. Taking only a couple of weeks off, I immediately started my master's degree in Strategic Communication in January 2011. Pictured with me is my boyfriend, C.J., who is in the United States Marine Corps and will finish his schooling within the next couple of month before finding out where he will be stationed. I am currently counting down the days until mid-October when I get to see him again. 

During my undergraduate career, I had two internships. The first one was with the Waxahachie Independent School District working with the Public Relations director, Nicole Mansell. I grew up in Waxahachie and my parents still live there. Thanks to my mom, who originally spoke to Ms. Mansell for me, I was able to obtain this internship for two consecutive summers. My main focus during this internship was working on the District Service Awards and the school district's showcase. For both of these events, it required many weeks of planning as well as talking to vendors and setting up the convention center.

My second internship was this past year with Texas State University Athletic Marketing department. I was specifically in charge of Promise of Pride as well as helping with promotions, photography and game set-up.  During Texas State games, all the music and announcements fans hear is one aspect of what I had a chance to do. During football season, I was able to walk out for all but one coin flip, which was quite exciting! (I am in the black polo and khaki pants)

My internships have helped me define a little more what I want to do with my degrees. I realized that I love organizing events for companies and organizations. I have looked at taking additional classes outside of Texas State to obtain my event planning license as well as my wedding planning license. Though I am not completely interested in weddings, I think it would help me overall.



I think the thing that has surprised me the most about the internet was when they mentioned that if the networking idea did not work, how they may have just given up immediately. Another surprising aspect was that AT&T and IBM passed up the opportunity to expand their communication reach, especially considering today how so many communication companies offer several different services (such as TV, internet and telephone).

I was originally interested in this course because I do not have much experience creating websites and figured it would only benefit me.  The little experience I do have consists of just changing data, such as names and numbers, while working on Promise of Pride.