I can still remember the feelings I had on the afternoon of my college graduation: bitter-sweet excitement, pride, relief and confusion over exactly how I was going to use my newly-earned degree in the “real world.” During my final two years at Penn State University, where I majored in Advertising, I was under the impression that success in the industry meant working for a massive ad agency, developing campaigns for large brands and seeing my work displayed in the mediums primarily covered in my classes–print, television, outdoor and radio. But there was an incredibly important channel missing from my communications knowledge at the time–digital. It was only when I began my post-graduation internship with MediaMath in June of 2014 that I truly began to understand what digital advertising is, how it works and how important it is in the advertising and marketing industry today.

As a graphic design intern with the New Marketing Institute (NMI), MediaMath’s training arm, I was primarily responsible for creating, updating and maintaining NMI’s certification materials (workbooks, promotional collateral, etc.). It was through designing these materials and working closely with a team of extraordinarily knowledgeable subject matter experts that I began to immerse myself in all things digital marketing. It was quite overwhelming at first, given that I had never heard of 80 percent of the concepts I was working with, but after taking NMI’s comprehensive certification courses and designing the corresponding workbooks, I started to better understand this rapidly growing field and realize how important it is and will be in the years to come. This experience also introduced me to the technology that has been revolutionizing the way digital marketing works since 2007, MediaMath’s TerminalOne Marketing Operating System.

Over the course of my three-month internship and then 12-month role as the Creative Specialist with NMI, I was finally able to get caught up to speed on what’s going on at the forefront of the marketing and advertising industry. I truly believe that the future is in digital and programmatic, and I am proud to work for a company that is on the cutting edge of connecting brands with the right audience, across all devices, and in real-time. I’m also incredibly proud to work for the training arm of this company, where I’m able to help make the industry and its terms more digestible to audiences across the globe, now including my alma mater, Penn State.

This past week I was able to return to University Park, Pennsylvania for the College of Communications’ “Digital Week,” a multi-day event where a new minor in digital advertising was introduced. The main event of “Digital Week” was a keynote speech from NMI’s Elise James-Decruise, Senior Director & Head of Global Training. During this speech, she introduced an audience of over 100 Ad/PR students to the future of their majors. She walked them through the history of digital advertising, simplified the complex acronyms and introduced them to the key players of the industry.

As I sat there listening to this speech, I put myself in the shoes of the students around me and imagined that I was learning this content for the very first time. Needless to say, I was a bit jealous. They were getting a head start on learning about this industry and all of the potential job opportunities within it, but I was also incredibly excited for them. They were getting the chance to study all of this at the university level and would be able to enter the workforce with digital familiarity. This was a fantastic opportunity, and if I were in their shoes, I would be jumping in with both feet. Luckily, I was able to tell them all of this the very next evening during a panel of recent-grad digital advertising professionals on which I was invited to speak.

Joined by Leslie Malysiak of Google, Patric Fyock of Harmelin Media, Brad Groznik of Groznik PR and Rachel Brown of Adroit Digital, we discussed what it was like to work in the digital world of communications, what our outlook was for the future of the industry and how important it is that future grads start acclimating themselves as soon as they can. I specifically spoke to the opportunities available within the industry and about how exciting it is to work for a company on the cutting edge of advertising and marketing. We even took a mini-tour of the brand new NMI website to show the students where they could find more learning resources if they were unable to join the digital minor. Overall, it was a fantastic conversation about the role that digital will play in the future of communications and how these students can get on board early.

As I drove back to New York City after the event at Penn State, I was once again reflecting on those feelings I had on graduation day, especially the confusion and uncertainty. I thought of how I would have felt if I had known what I do now…that the future is in digital. What if I had known about all of the different companies within the digital space looking to hire talented individuals? What if I had known that success could be found outside of the large agency setting? What if I had known that there are better ways to reach individuals than through traditional mediums? Even though I couldn’t necessarily answer all of these questions, I felt satisfied because I was able to pass this knowledge down to the incoming generation of advertising, public relations and marketing professionals. Hopefully they’ll be ready for all that digital has to offer.