ABOUT: ERIN JIMERSON

Hey there! My name is Erin Jimerson, I am a sophomore currently majoring in business administration and minoring in applied journalism. One of my goals in taking this course is to determine whether I should focus my major in Marketing. I have several years of paid and volunteer marketing experience, so I am excited to learn fundamentals that can help strengthen my understanding of marketing strategy through implementing course material. I'm slightly addicted to LinkedIn so feel free to follow me over there to see the rest of my marketing experience. I've gone back and forth on my major too many times to count, and definitely consider dropping out at least once a term. I constantly question "is college the right path for me?" Yet in just the first week of taking this class I'm already leaning towards making the degree switch to marketing. I have a hard time making decisions, but I'm feeling good about this one.

One of the reasons I'm so excited about focusing my degree in marketing is because of the many attributes it encapsulates. I love how marketing contains both the analytical elements of strategy, research, and data while also emphasizing the importance of creativity, design, and wild ideas. My brain works both ways. Few careers seem to utilize both left and right brain hemispheres so frequently. I am really interested to learn more about effective marketing strategy and obscure marketing campaigns that have proven to be effective.

Marketing also provides space for some of my many passions: creative storytelling and giving people a voice. Enter my passion project, Humanity in the Raw (HINTR), into this narrative scene. HINTR is a publication that I started last spring after completing an underground publishing course at Oregon State University. Each issue is a little booklet that gently holds some of the most vulnerable stories whispered within society. I start by sending out a prompt surrounding a not-so-often-talked-about topic. Then people submit anonymous stories in response. The goal is to provide a kind of release—a source of healing. I believe that one of the best ways to overcome difficult circumstances is to utilize the power of vulnerability. It's not only empowering, but it helps others feel seen when they can relate to something similar. We're really not alone in what we're going through, despite social media's constant attempt to tell us so. HINTR exists to highlight the intertwining vulnerabilities of humanity, and to demonstrate that hard things will get better. If you're interested in reading one of the issues, feel free to follow the HINTR instagram account. You can see some behind the scenes footage of the letterpress process used to make the cover, too. It would mean a lot if you checked it out. :)

Not only am I excited to utilize this course as a guide for figuring out my degree, but also to implement real techniques into growing this publication so that it can reach more people. I'm stoked, actually. Thanks for being here for this part of my journey.