Even though junior Sydney Eyerly has five domestic trips and one study abroad trip with the School of Communication Studies under her belt, she was still blown away by her experience during the school’s newest student trip destination: Atlanta. Eyerly said learning about career options from professionals and networking with alumni in the Georgia metropolis was an invaluable opportunity.
“We try to make each trip a little different and this one was focusing on one company and how you can work in a large company and all the different positions there. We got a unique perspective from the Atlanta trip for sure,” Eyerly, who is president of the Communication Studies Club that helps facilitate these trips, said.
For this inaugural Atlanta trip, the students explored The Coca-Cola Company headquarters with communication studies alumna Brittnye Kidd (’98), a Coca-Cola senior director of marketing network communications who organized the visit. She arranged for the College of Communication and Information students to meet with a variety of professionals in different roles at the organization and took them on a tour of the Coca-Cola factory.
“After learning about the School of Communications’ networking trips and their interest in visiting Atlanta, it was a no brainer to invite them to The Coca-Cola Company HQ where I work in global marketing,” Kidd said. “I was excited to share the real magic of Coca-Cola as well as a glimpse of what a day in the life, as well as a fulfilling career, can be like at TCCC.”
Kidd said the experience was a “win-win” for everyone involved and that the students expressed “genuine gratitude” for everything she did for them. Giving back to the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, was a fulfilling experience she would recommend other alumni undertake if given the chance.
“It allowed me to reminisce about my time at UT with students who are there now in the same field of study. One of my favorite moments was a group photo by the iconic yellow Coca-Cola truck as they all threw up their VFL sign. It was fun for me to plan a day full of surprise and delight, and hopefully a meaningful and unforgettable experience,” she said.
According to junior Lauren Hiatt, Kidd hit the bullseye with her efforts. Hiatt has been exploring what she enjoys in communication roles via internships, but this trip was a quick way to gather more information about what else the field has to offer. Unlike Eyerly, this was the very first school trip Hiatt attended—now, she’s aiming to go on every trip she can squeeze into her busy schedule.
“This was actually incredible; it was the best experience. I love building community ,so I like getting involved in anything I can,” she said.
Hiatt is also a communication studies major and a member of the Communication Studies Club; students in the club can sign up for these networking trips before it opens to the rest of the college. Besides participating in experiences such as the one in Atlanta, the club also arranges for alumni to speak to its members and facilitates other engaging ways to add to its members’ professional development.
Hiatt noted that one of CCI’s most prominent communication studies alumni—former-NFL quarterback, current sports media broadcaster, and CCI Professor of Practice Peyton Manning—funded a scholarship that covers the cost of the School of Communication Studies’ networking trips for students. The trip was so meaningful to Hiatt that she wrote a letter to Manning thanking him for funding such an incredible opportunity.
Hiatt’s interests in communication careers remain broad, though she finds anything in the business world exciting. She soaked up information from the people she met during the visit, such as the tip that a marketer needs more than surface-level knowledge about a company to represent its brand well—advice she’s going to use before entering her summer internship with Nissan.
For Eyerly, the Atlanta trip illuminated career opportunities she had not previously considered. Her interests lie in working for nonprofits, but the foray into Coca-Cola showed her that companies often have departments with altruistic missions—such as the sustainability initiatives The Coca-Cola Company has undertaken. As an Atlanta native, Eyerly is hoping to move back to the city, and her options for a career pathway expanded beyond nonprofit work after being exposed to corporate philanthropy.
Both Eyerly and Hiatt said learning about Kidd’s journey from starting as a consultant to working a variety of jobs at Coca-Cola over the past 12 years gave them a new perspective about the advantages of working for a large company. They also both expressed their delight at the wide array of careers UT communication studies alumni can enter due to their major’s versatility.
“I don’t have to pick a specific thing right now; I can do a bunch of things my whole career. I feel like anyone who goes into the communications field does a little bit of everything to test the waters and you usually find what you like,” Eyerly said, noting she originally picked communication studies as a placeholder major before realizing she loved the field of study and the career flexibility it will offer her after graduation.
Though the trip’s main focus was to give students facetime with communication professionals, such trips always have a secondary benefit: networking with other students. Eyerly said she always encourages students to take the plunge and just go on a trip even if they don’t know anyone because chances are good they’ll come back from the journey with new friends at their side.
“I always have the mindset that I’ll say yes to everything even if it freaks me out or I don’t know much about it because that’s where I’ve found the best opportunities,” she said.