Today, instead of having my regular PR and Advertising class with my teacher Marsha D’Angelo our entire class went on a bit of a walkabout.
At 12:50pm we all met in Yaletown at the main floor lobby of building 1085 Homer Street. Aside from a couple other businesses, this building houses Cossette Communications Group. Now for those that don’t know of Cossette (like myself until a year ago) this is an agency that integrates all the numerous communications-marketing disciplines into one company. I had never heard of them before I entered the PR Program at my university and so I had no idea until today just how HUGE they are!! Cossette is leader in Canada’s communications landscape…and has an international reach as well.
Our teacher Marsha use to work for Cossette and then moved to one of their main subsidiaries in the UK, Band and Brown Public Relations where she worked for about 8 years (I think). Through Marsha we were able to go as a group today and take a tour of Cossette and see the inner workings of an agency! It was amazing to see and this, combined with a very cool presentation I saw yesterday by a previous grad of the PR Program I’m in (Natalie Burgwin), has really started gearing me up to leave school and finally get out and join the PR work force. (It’s still a very daunting concept for me…but I’m a little more excited about it now!)
When we first got to Cossette, we went up to the 5th floor and watched/listened to a presentation about Cossette from Optimum PR’s Vice President Jackie Asante. She talked about Cossette’s humble beginnings to its most recent changes in structure such as the addition of a Dare Digital office in their building! Dare is an award-winning interactive agency based in London, UK however they now occupy the 4th floor at Cossette. It was a very cool presentation and I learned a lot from it and about agency life. Jackie has worked both in-house and in agency life…for over 20 years! So she definitely knows what she’s talking about. After that our class was split into three groups and we separately toured the three floors that make up all of Cossette (floors 4, 5, and 6). It was eye opening to actually get to see the inside of an agency (This is the route I’m thinking of taking…but I’ll get into that more later). We saw all the cubicles and the areas where the designers work, the media buyers, and all the different teams that make up Cossette. It was a place I could envision myself working and got me thinking a lot.
I’ve always leaned in the direction of working in an agency. At least initially anyways. I like the idea of starting off with people who know what they’re doing and are experts in their respective fields. I’d get to try something new everyday and never have the same day or experience twice. I’d have room to grow and find out exactly what it is I’d like doing, and learn heaps about everything along the way! Maybe one day I’ll work in-house, but for now I think I’ll aim for agency life and get some experience under my belt.
All in all it was an exceptional day, and has got me interested to start my month long internship…instead of dreading the process.
Adventures of a Redhead 
Hi there, sounds like a pretty interesting trip!
Just wondering how you enjoyed Marsha as a professor? How did you fare in her class?
She teaching a technical report writing course in kwantlen this summer and would definitely be interested but it would be one of my last remaining electives and I need to ensure I can still increase my gpa in my last term.
Any advice on her classes and opinions about her teaching abilities and grading would be appreciated.
Not looking for PR but a masters so report writing would seem like a good choice!
I found Marsha to be an awesome teacher! Everything she taught us was relevant and to-the-point. I didn’t feel like she wasted any time in class and simply taught us what we needed to know. All the assignments were relevant and helped us to understand whatever the current lesson was. I had her for two semesters and was a little sad when her sub came back from maternity-leave. I’d definitely recommend her as a teacher.