Ever seen that flyer saying White Panda’ll be performing this week or the one advertising free food and other items? Well below the graphics and under the bold block letters, is a subtle logo with four icons and the words: Program Board. I’ve talked a lot about AIChE (American Institue of Chemical Engineers), which is my favorite organization in Viterbi, but outside Viterbi, it’ll have to be: Program Board Marketing Committee. I always look forward to the meetings on Monday night each week for another round of brainstorming, planning and promoting!
Program Board itself is a branch of the Undergraduate Student Government. It’s an organization that provides a bunch of campus activities from bringing Childish Gambino to perform to having guest speakers on a variety of topics. It’s divided into different committees: trojan pride, concerts, speakers, performing arts, special events, and marketing.
The marketing committee advertises the events; in other words, we basically try to get the word out about what’s going on on campus. We also help students become more aware about what Program Board is/does (i.e explain the different committees and their responsibilities) and even provide information on how to join if they’re interested. For example, at almost all the concerts, the marketing committee will have a tent off to the side where you can ask about what program board does, how to get more involved or to just talk!
Part of the meeting tasks is to come up with new, economically practical freebies and ideas for how to advertise some of the events and activities or if there’s something we can add to enhance the experience. It’s a lot of fun to bounce ideas off each other and sometimes ones that seem a little far fetched at first can actually end up happening. But aside from meetings, I’ve also done “tabling” which means handing out flyers and being ready to answer questions along Trousdale and sat at monthly events in front of Tommy Trojan where we give away promo items like cups, pens, lanyards or decal stickers.
I’ve met a lot of new people from majors other than Public Relations and Business. But one of the best parts is: at the end of the semester there are “devos” where we usually all go out to dinner together!