Although an achieved live performance pianist, rising Penn sophomore Teresa Xie isn’t always playing the ivories at the Settlement Music School for the duration of her summertime internship; however, as an alternative, she is getting to know approximately advertising and marketing songs for the Philadelphia nonprofit.
“I desired to get returned into the tune, and I desired to look if advertising would be truly what I concept it would be,” Xie, from Chicago, says. “I think it’s cool to be working in a nonprofit. A settlement isn’t a big employer, so I am on the advertising and marketing crew. I suppose the revel in has helped me see the nitty-gritty side of advertising and marketing; I’ve found out I’m most fascinated by randing and improvement, but now I’m not a lot making brochures.”
Xie, a Benjamin Franklin Scholar, is thinking about the fundamentals of mixed philosophy, politics, and economics, with minors in client psychology and cinema research. Also a journalist and photographer, she was offered the internship through the RealArts@Penn software, which offers a stipend.
Photography and video initiatives to showcase students and instructors on the college’s website are a huge part of her work during the three-day-a-week internship. She took images at the annual assembly of the board of administrators and helped with video shoots at locations around Philadelphia. Although she usually works with the marketing group, this month, she can additionally help the fundraising group.
“My favorite part of my work is going around and interviewing people and putting in cameras because I love photography and media, and I hate sitting down,” she says. “I like going to specific locations in Philly and meeting new humans. It’s a completely enticing enjoyment.”
She also conducts studies for advertising in external media retailers, comparing print and online alternatives, to promote the college’s open homes, performances, and lessons. She has additionally been updating website content, which includes teacher biographies.
In 1908, the faculty offered to school in tune, dance, and the innovative arts. It is one of the kingdom’s oldest and biggest community faculties of the arts, with over two hundred instructors in six branches serving over 5,000 students a year. “I suppose it’s miles a certainly welcoming, circle of relatives-oriented area for college kids to get engaged in song after faculty from a young age,” Xie says.
Highlights
She says that one of the most interesting video initiatives she has labored on this summer became the profile of a trainer who performs the vibraphone. The educational video shows how to improvise and get the tune on the web page. “That became cool. We went to his house and set up lights and cameras,” says Xie. “It’s a fun manner to promote the school’s jazz classes.”
She additionally controlled two video shoots of rising first-year university students who have been students at Settlement, talking about their reports with a nearby collaborative and how that has shaped their musical careers.
She liked another shoot for Settlement’s new Rhythm ‘n Brews program for adults who want to learn to play drums.
Office view
The marketing department is currently installed in the school’s track library. “I see outside a window into the Settlement car parking zone on one side and rows and rows of tune on the other,” Xie says. Impressions made Megan Looby, the advertising and public director relations sector, say Xie has been “tremendous” to work with. “In communications, we’re just a -person team, so it’s been first-rate to have her to brainstorm ideas and conduct marketplace studies tasks,” Looby says. “She turned into appealing to us within the interview method because she is inquisitive about a number of the matters we do right here, consisting of images, video, writing, advertising, the creative aspect.”
Penn connection
Xie performed the piano, beginning at five years old and on through high faculty, peaking her junior 12 months while performing in Carnegie Hall after winning the American Protégé international opposition. Focusing on a classical repertoire, she additionally achieved with a chamber institution. “Since going to university, I have no longer been capable of exercising or playing, so I’m busy with different things,” she says. “Music is in my existence, but in a special manner.” At Penn, she is a tune beat reporter for thirty-fourth Street Magazine, a part of the scholar-run Daily Pennsylvanian newspaper, writing weekly articles, including album opinions and profiles of recent artists.
She teaches as a part of the student-run After School Arts at Penn program through the Platt Student Performing Arts House. Once per week throughout the faculty year, she volunteers to educate Philadelphia public college students on the piano. “I cherished it. I liked that the youngsters were excited to play each week,” she says. “Even though quite a few of them didn’t have the means to exercise, I ought to see them enhancing. The enthusiasm that children showed to do track after college was great.” Her interest in marketing changed into a field journey to Condé Nast and Estée Lauder with the MUSE Penn advertising and marketing club. “I virtually cherished being at the one’s agencies and seeing what they produce,” she says.
She also is a photographer for The Walk, Penn’s student-run editorial style mag. She is the marketing director of the educational affairs department of the International Affairs Association. Outside the internship, Living with pals in a sublet near Penn, Xie explores the metropolis’s neighborhoods and takes bartending lessons. “I desired to benefit from that and cross into customer service in restaurant bartending enterprise,” she says. “I think getting out and assembling human beings is right.”
