For communication studies senior Gillian Black, college has been a “complete 180°” from high school. After graduating from high school with a 2.1 GPA and facing an initial rejection from Temple University, Black put on her gameface and crushed her first semester at Harrisburg Area Community College with a 4.0. The next time she applied to Temple, she was much happier with the result — being not only accepted but eventually becoming admitted into the University Honors Program the following semester.
Initially enrolling in the journalism program, Black decided to switch into communication studies after being persuaded by her friend Max Eagle, KLN ‘20, who was incredibly active in the program. There, she made even more friends who would encourage her academic and professional goals in her classes and extracurricular activities, including academic stars Rachel Berson and Grace Rogers.
“I wasn’t set on journalism originally, and Max convinced me and Rachel to switch,” she said. “It was honestly the best decision I made in all of college just because the Communication Studies Program has such an amazing community.”
One of the ways in which Black made the most of her new major and community was by pursuing research. Her interest was sparked in Professor Dana Saewitz’s Honors Media and Society course, where she wrote a 20-page research paper titled “Validating Our Self Worth in a Digital Era,” which she said covered “online dating and how it impacts your impression of yourself.”
Black continued to pursue her research interests in Professor Scott Gratson’s Argumentation Advocacy course, where she worked with Rogers to research parental incarceration in Philadelphia. Black owes the freedom to explore her various topics of interest to the program itself. “I’ve been able to explore a bunch of different, interdisciplinary topics throughout the Communication Studies Program,” she said.
In addition to her research interests, Black is on the Entrepreneurship track of the Communication Studies Program, and is pursuing a minor in digital media engagement as well. Her career goals have been rooted in fashion journalism and content creation since high school, so it felt like fate when she found out about an internship opportunity managing social media for Philly Fashion Week, after being rejected from another dream internship at Lilly Pulitzer.
Black said that while there are not many fashion opportunities in Philadelphia right now, it is a growing industry as more and more of the fashion community leaves New York. “It’s been awesome. Now that I’m [almost] out of school, I love that I can do that still,” she said.
In addition to vibrant professional and academic lives, Black is incredibly active within the extracurricular organizations at Temple and within Klein College of Media and Communication. Over the course of her time at Temple, she has been one of the general body members and social media coordinator of the now-defunct fashion communication club FETCH; one of the founding general body members, then volunteer coordinator, and now president since last year of Diamond Dogs, a “philanthropic group that volunteers and fundraises at animal shelters in Philadelphia”; a founding member of Temple’s Tri Delta sorority chapter; a member of Lambda Pi Eta, the honor society for the National Communication Association; and a member of Rho Lambda, sorority leadership recognition society.
With all of these credentials, Black has built herself a path with clear-cut goals: to work in content creation and digital media after graduation in May 2021 while attending graduate school, either for a master's or straight to a PhD program. Professor Saewitz in particular urged her to apply for a PhD program so that she could pursue research in her fullest capacity, but she is also considering the Master of Science in Strategic Advertising program, jointly run by Fox School of Business and Klein.
“I think [the hybrid program] is so unique because it’s specific to Temple,” she said. “No one else has that.”
Black said that she though she is a bit nervous about the idea of applying to a PhD program, she is looking forward to a future where she can utilize both the skills and the theories that she has become so adept with and eventually teach at the university level. “Gillian is a terrific student and I am very happy to learn that she is planning to attend graduate school after graduation,” Professor Saewitz said in an email. “I am very confident that she will succeed no matter which career path she chooses.”