Alumni – MEMORANDUM

Alumna Spotlight Interview: Allison Underwood

By Natalie Pagan

Allison Underwood, a UAB graduate, sat down with me to discuss how the Professional Writing program can help students reach their career goals. Underwood currently works at Good Grit Magazine here in Birmingham, Alabama as a digital media coordinator. Good Grit focuses on an elegant and progressive reflection of southern heritage.

Underwood said, “I’ve lived here my whole life, but it wasn’t until I started working with Good Grit that I fell in love with the South. Good Grit brings the Southerner out of the box—there’s a place for everyone here!” This August will mark Underwood’s two years of employment at this magazine.

Underwood started off at Good Grit working as a paid intern before becoming a part-time staff member and currently the person in charge of running digital and social media. Some of the job activities include posting on social media sites such as Facebook, managing social profiles, emailing newsletters and creating graphics for profiles. Underwood mentioned having taken UAB’s Digital Media Capstone course, which brought about the unpaid internship. This allowed them to receive a job offer to be a part-time employee at Good Grit Magazine.

I asked about the experience that Underwood had prior to working at Good Grit. They gave credit to a professional writing background and how the degree has helped thus far. Underwood mentioned that they are thankful for having been introduced to the major early enough to pursue and finish the degree. Underwood went on to promote the degree by saying, “A person who chooses this major can do whatever they want with it.” Underwood listed technical writing, teaching, social media and coding as a few of the jobs that are relevant in the professional field.

The interviewee explained that in their particular job, there is not only writing involved, but coding, designing and editing documents. Although Underwood does not code for Good Grit Magazine, they have done some coding as a freelancer.

During the interview, Underwood explained that the required courses for their Bachelor’s degree provided an opportunity to gain the experience needed for the job at Good Grit Magazine.

Because the internship was geared primarily towards digital media, they were able to use what was learned throughout courses such as Developing Digital Documents to better analyze the material that was going to be distributed or posted onto the internet.

This course allowed them to learn how to compare different font choices, colors and proximities on different documents, making sure that the magazine is sent out looking its absolute best. This course allowed Underwood to become familiar with programs such as Adobe Illustrator, InDesign and Photoshop which many magazine companies work with, including Good Grit.

Although these skills have helped Underwood reach a stellar career goal, Underwood admits that they have also made it difficult to not feel the need to analyze every document or advertisement they see. Underwood unabashedly stated, “I’ll look at a billboard and think about what I would change to fix it.”

As someone currently taking the Developing Digital Documents course, I had to agree with Underwood that nothing can possibly look the same once you’ve figured out all of the tricks of document design. The interviewee agreed and said that this was in fact the gift and the curse of learning all of these skills. “Once you know how to do it correctly, you notice that the rest of the world does not.”

The interviewee strongly encouraged current English majors to look into the professional writing program. Underwood is the proof that with the right experience and education, your dream job can be the one that you land and thrive at.

Days after interviewing Underwood, they have just obtained a new position at Good Grit Magazine. While keeping most of the same responsibilities, Underwood’s new position now includes managing interns, gift guides, developing campaigns for magazine subscriptions and curating sponsored content.

While still being actively involved in scheduling Facebook, Instagram and the email campaign, Underwood has begun delegating a lot of these responsibilities and tasks to interns to be able to focus on the bigger picture. Good Grit is always looking for hard-working students to fill internship roles.

On behalf of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, we wish Underwood the best of luck in continuing to further their career.

Alumni Spotlight: Olelakan’s advice for PW Majors

By Robert Conditt III

Navigating the open job market can be a daunting experience for Professional Writing (PW) majors. The versatility of the degree can be a real asset, but it can also make it hard for some to hone down and find what kind of job they would like or even one that appeals to them. Professional writing is a unique discipline that spans a wide range of professions across an equally wide range of industries. Some of these professions may seem like obvious choices to PW majors, like journalism, editing, or copywriting. But there are some jobs out there that are less obvious, and can be quite rewarding for graduates of this concentration. Businesses today require lots of written documentation. Documentation that ranges from executive level memos and reports to company-wide letters and policy documents, all the way down to the daily orders that workers must follow and complete. Professional writers are needed to create and write these documents, but these types of job opportunities can still be difficult to find if you don’t know how or where to look.

Olalekan Dada is a recent graduate from UAB, with a Bachelor’s Degree in Professional Writing and Public Discourse, who knows all too well this experience. Currently, Dada (as he likes to be called) is a Proposal Coordinator for Diversified Maintenance (formerly Rite Way Services.) Diversified Maintenance is a janitorial and housekeeping service provider. As a Proposal Coordinator, Dada is responsible for writing the business proposals his company submits to potential clients in hopes to garner contracts. These proposals are the documents upon which client’s base the decision to hire or pass on his company’s services. Olalekan enjoys this position and how it constantly challenges his skills as a writer, but finding it was still a difficult process. In a recent interview Dada shared his experience in navigating the open job market. He discussed the strategy he used in finding a job, some pointers for future graduates, and some of the unexpected things that he found as he entered the professional sphere.

After graduating, Dada says that his strategy for employment involved online job searches. The site that got him his current job was indeed.com. He recommends that site for anyone looking to work with small companies. The key, he says, to looking online for a job is to be specific about your searches. This is one of the unexpected things that he found when he entered the job pool, “You can’t just type in writer and expect to find a job, well, at least not in Birmingham. You have to look for communicator or marketing associate.” In essence, you have to know the title of the job you may be interested in, “then tailor your résumé to that job.”

Having an online résumé, as well as a personal website with a digital portfolio of his previous work helped him immensely in marketing himself to potential employers. He built these in a Digital Media class taught by UAB’s own Dr. Bacha. He mentions this after being asked about how UAB has prepared him for the job market. “Knowing these skills, and having a place where employers could see my work definitely gave me an edge.” He also stressed the point that those who are still in school should keep their résumés up to date with class projects, “because employers want to see what you have done and proof that you have the skills you say you do.” Being able to keep track of what you have done and having the ability to “tap into to your memory on the fly” and know what you are capable of doing can help you get a job, and having good documentation of your previous work can help with that.

When asked about what advice he had for PW majors, or what he wished someone would have told him about being a Professional Writer, he said, “get used to short, hard deadlines. You may be given an assignment at like noon, and it has to be done by the end of the day, or first thing the next morning. You need to be quick and you have to make sure it’s good.” Having the skills to be an agile writer is a must and he attributes his ability to do so to the time he spent in at UAB. He feels that the classes he took as part of the Professional Writing concentration really tested and improved his skills as a writer. They prepared him for the work that he is doing by teaching him the “etiquette” of professionalism, and made him aware of the different ways to communicate. His final piece of advice: “Take everything that Dr. Bacha teaches seriously. Everything will pop when you see it in the real world.”