As the first week comes to a close, it is always useful to look back and reflect on everything we have learned and experienced. Even though Ellie, Jordana, and myself missed the first day due to a flight cancellation, that did not stop us from immediately connecting to the group. Luckily for us our first day of class was an excursion tour around the island led by the wonderful Gregory.
Gregory drove us around the whole island while educating us on the two sides (Dutch and French), the history of Sint Maarten, and the impact of external factors and publics that affect this beautiful island. It is safe to say Gregory is a fan of the hustle and bustle and party scene on the Dutch side more than the French side.
The next two days of classes were more of overviews of the things we will be focusing on for the remainder of our time here. In Dr. Hayes's class we went over how analytics can be applied to social media which allows you to learn more about your brand or companies publics and target markets. In Dr. Van Dyke's class it very much discussion based on the campaign we are about to start for Vacationstmaarten.com. I am very much looking forward to this campaign because it provides many of us with our first real world experience with PR and advertising. A lot of classes are learning theories and memorizing definitions, but this allows us to get up close and personal with PR.
My group, the XY chromosomes, consists of Rajan, Amari, Skylar, and myself. We are looking forward to diving into our target market of retirees. The social media audit that we will conduct is what I am looking forward to the most. As someone who loves social media, I look forward to seeing how our company uses their various platforms to their advantage, while also looking at how we could improve their platforms and their voice.
The next excursion we participated in was exploring Philipsburg, which is the capitol of the Dutch side of the island. Here we experienced first hand how the island relies on and revolves around cruise ships and tourism. The town seemed very quiet with the lack of tourist. Talking to Juggie, the owner of the worlds smallest bar Juggies Place, he talked about how the streets are the most crowded when cruise ships float into town. I look forward to talking to more shop owners around the island to see how they stay afloat during the off seasons. Do they make enough money to cary them over the off season? Are they struggling? How much do hurricanes effect the local economy? These are all questions I look forward to discussing with the locals.
During the weekend we all got to have some fun in the sun spending time by the pool and at Mullet Beach down the road. We did get to see the Dutch night life first hand at the Mykonos pool party on Saturday night. This party wasn't as crowded as I assumed it was going to be. When I asked the bartender of Mykonos he said, "During the off season we are less crowded than we normally are."
I am very much looking forward to the next week of classes and excursions, and I can't wait to see what memories we make next.
--Mac Holman
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