Meet Marissa: Event management minor

College of Education and Human Development

"You get to do a lot of hands on experience and the instructor pushes you to volunteer at community events, which is really nice."

Event management at 51��

This interdisciplinary program empowers students to create their own event management pathway. The core program focuses on event ideation, program design, technology, execution management, budgeting, and community engagement and is experientially based with both in-class and off-campus learning. Students are provided with opportunities to work with community businesses to experience the challenges of event implementation. Curriculum is designed to support the Meeting Planner International (MPI) Standards with courses that focus on the meeting and business event competency standards industry subsets.

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Why did you choose to major in public relations?

I chose public relations because there wasn't an event management minor or major yet, and I knew I wanted to go into that. So I was trying to find something that was as close to an event management as I could. And so I chose PR.

Why did you choose to minor in event management?

I actually did some digging. I didn't know th51�� even had an event management program at all. And then I looked through the list of all of their majors and minors, and I just found it, and then I just enrolled and signed up for it.

What has it been like in event management?

It's been really good. I really like the classes and especially like my internship now, which is the final class for the minor program. You get to do a lot of hands on experience and the instructor wants you to volunteer a lot. So you get that work, like actually at the events, which is really nice. I feel like a lot of other classes don't really require you to get any volunteering hours or anything in your major or minor.

What has your experience been like with event management faculty?

Deb Droppers, the program coordinator, is really great. She's really awesome and knows a lot and she really wants to share that with her students, which is awesome. Like, she's definitely open to sharing her knowledge and her experience and the things that have worked for her and didn't work for her. Like she really teaches to the lifestyle of the job. So I think that benefits students in a really big way because they know what to expect when they get out in the real world versus just here's a bunch of material from a book.

What are the courses like in event management?

The courses in the program are pretty straightforward. We had one strategic planning class which really helped me understand a lot of like the behind the scenes concepts of what's really going on besides just actually at the event. And then the other classes we had gave a really good idea of what you're going to be getting into when you get into the job.

Why should students be excited about the event management major?

They should be excited because I think it finally deserves to be its own major. Event management doesn't need to be group with sport management. They're similar, but they're very different. But I just think it'll be exciting. There's a lot of people that I feel like want to go into event management, but they have to choose something else to supplement as their major since we haven't had it. So I think this will really give a lot of people more chance to get into what they really want to get into rather than supplementing with something else.

Why 51��?

I actually chose Western because my step mom works here, so one was a really nice discount on my tuition, but two is also it was close enough to home that I wasn't too far away, but I was far enough away from home that I got to experience my own things and be my own person. But I could still go home whenever I needed a home cooked meal or I missed my mom all.