Smith
Senior Featured in CosmoGirl! Magazine
After being chosen last
spring by magazine
as a finalist in its Project 2024 internship competition,
Meghan Greenhalgh ’08 was featured in the December
edition along with her seven co-finalists. Greenhalgh spent
the summer as an intern at Saatchi & Saatchi, a leading
advertising firm in New York City.
Project 2024 sponsors internships for female college
students in industries in which women are traditionally
underrepresented at the highest levels. The program was
created to prepare current college-aged women to reach
their professional goals by the year 2024, when current CosmoGirl! readers
will become eligible to run for president of the United
States.
After her busy summer, Greenhalgh
is serving as a Gold Key Guide, networking with Smith alumnae
and managing her blog, Faking Good Breeding (), which
was recently featured in the New York Times and
receives more than 70,000 page views per month. After graduating,
she plans to move to New York City to pursue a career in
advertising.
Greenhalgh is Smith’s
second CosmoGirl! intern
in three years. Jane Kim ’06 participated in the
program before her senior year. Greenhalgh recently
wrote about her experience at Saatchi & Saatchi.
By Meghan Greenhalgh ’08
While most people fast-forward through the commercials on
television, I often find myself more interested in the commercials
than the television shows themselves.
Advertising is the most
prevalent art form in our culture, and I’ve always been fascinated by the techniques advertisers
use to grab the attention of passive viewers. After spending
last summer interning at Saatchi & Saatchi, I can also
appreciate just how much thought and effort goes into crafting
an advertising campaign.
At Saatchi & Saatchi, the 2007 Cannes Advertising Agency
of the Year, I interned with the Olay brand team. Olay, owned
by Proctor & Gamble, is the largest skincare brand in
the world with over $2 billion in annual sales. My internship
gave me a hands-on experience as I attended daily client
meetings, traveled to photo shoots and assisted at every
step of the production process. In addition to daily brand
activities, I worked with members of the planning, creative,
media and account management departments to create a hypothetical,
comprehensive advertising campaign to stop violence and harassment
of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender teens. I presented
my campaign to the agency and a number of GLBT activist groups
at the end of the summer.
As a CosmoGirl intern,
I lived with the seven others at the New York University
dorms. The magazine paid for all of our living expenses
during the summer. Other interns worked at organizations
as varied as Merrill Lynch, J Records, The Natural Resources
Defense Council, the and New York State Attorney General’s
Office.
As an art history and
American studies double major, I feel that my Smith education
has prepared me well for a career in advertising. My professors
have done a fantastic job teaching me how to analyze images,
expressing myself in writing and giving formal presentations,
all skills that are crucial to success in this industry.
Also, Smith’s empowering
and supportive environment helped encourage me to apply for
the competitive internship. Smith has taught me to aim my
sights high and has provided me with so many positive female
role models.
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