Commonwealth//McCann High School Program

My partner and I saw a disparity in the representation of POC in the Detroit advertising community, so we did something about it. We created an internal program to give Detroit high school students access to the advertising world, help them build a professional network, and provide meaningful tools to help them navigate their career paths.

We invited students from local high schools, Cass Tech and Communication and Media Arts, for a Career Day and welcomed back interested students to enroll in Commonwealth’s first-ever summer Job Shadowing program.

Co-founder/Lead Program Co-ordinator with LaShonda Allen.

Career Day consisted of a brief overview of the industry, a tour of the agency and its departments, as well as inviting leaders to talk about how they found their way into advertising. We also gave the students a Project Brief which they all had to pitch to a panel of CW employees.

During the summer Job Shadowing program, we rotated the students within each department, paired them up with employees, and had a debrief after each day to gain insight on what they learned. We also held Lunch & Learns that were led by employees, which covered important trends and topics in the industry.

At the end of the 5-week program, the interns helped us organize a surprise Graduation Party, where each student was given a unique award based on their personality and all of the things we learned about them during our time together.