by Ted Sherman

Created on: June 19, 2008   Last Updated: June 23, 2008

The best college path to get to any profession requires both classroom studies and career-related off-campus experience. In the marking and ad field, I believe the latter can be the more important. While the bachelor's or master's degrees look good on your office wall and listed proudly in your resume, the work you do in the real world while you were a student can be the most impressive.

I spent 40 years in the advertising, sales promotion and marketing field, so I should have some definite ideas about how a young person should start on that career path. Maybe I considered myself an expert when I retired a few years ago, but one major factor has made all of my training and experience obsolete. My years of work may have absolutely nothing to do with what a young graduate must face today. It is that big tornado-like cloud of great opportunity up there just ahead for every ambitious young person. It is called digital age, but more about that later.

The beginning path to a marketing and ad career in today's business world ... tomorrow's is more descriptive ... is to get an early start. New grads today will find that everything will have changed drastically from what you learned in the classroom just months ago. Even in my final working years of the late 1990s, I could never have imagined wall-sized TV in every home, palm-sized doodads that store everything that happened in the world since Moses, little video maps on your car's dashboard that get mad when you make the wrong turn and hundreds of other innovations that will change, evolve and continue to amuse and amaze.

An early start in the marketing and ad career means just that. If you're in high school now, begin honing your skills in the creative aspects of the computer. Acquire by learning and practice high-quality writing, graphic design, communications and other skills you'll need when you start your career. Among your school volunteer activities, write for the campus newspaper, do scripts and on-air news and commentary on the school radio and/or TV station. To improve your speaking skills, join the debate and/or dramatic club. Make it your goal to develop all the skills you'll need when it is time to fight your way into the competitive world of business.

If you can work during summer breaks from high school and college, and you're willing to sacrifice months of fun in the sun, try to get yourself a job that can relate to your career ambitions. Look for an opening as an intern at an ad agency, TV or radio station,

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