Truckee Meadows Community College and My Career

As an international student at Truckee Meadows Community College (TMCC), I was always looking forward to securing an on-campus student worker position. This not only provided me with a generous amount of work experience but also connected me to many of the on-campus educational as well as extracurricular resources. Not to forget, it made me generate some extra cash that helped me execute my travel plans over the holidays. 

My student jobs

I worked as an ESL tutor at first, then I also worked in the campus auxiliary services. In my final semester I was able to secure a position with International Student Services as a peer mentor. Not only was I able to share my experience with fellow students but also work closely on policies and programs oriented with the international program. 

My after-graduation job

Post-graduation I got lucky when I received an offer from the TRIO department of my own college to take up a professional role with them. The Student Support Services (SSS) program provides support services to low-income students, first-generation college students, and disabled students enrolled in post-secondary education program. “TRIO” is not an acronym. Rather, it refers to the three original programs that were funded under Title IV of the Higher Education Act: Upward Bound, Talent Search, and Student Support Services. 

My responsibilities

I am now working as a digital media program specialist with TRIO SSS at TMCC. This makes me feel so accomplished. As a digital media program specialist, I coordinate the creation of digital content mainly for our college website, press releases, and the department's social media page. In addition, end-to-end digital projects are managed in coordination with the marketing team of the college. The role also fosters establishment of web presence to boost the policies and program undertaken by the department. 

The utmost role and responsibility of a reputation manager is to create and maintain a favorable brand image of the company and its products. He/she is in charge of every social media account of the company's brands and monitors how the brands are engaging with the audience. My role at TMCC TRIO SSS involves creating digital content to promote engagement and also awareness of the program. It invites more and more eligible students to be a part of this and benefit themselves from an array of exemplary resources provided by various grants. My role as a digital media program specialist has laid out a ground for me to explore the various tools incorporated with unique ideas and create digital campaigns for awareness, understanding and promotion. This is also going to help me polish my skills and deepen my knowledge for other complex assignments that I will handle in future. 

My goals for my job

[I am drawn to] the ever-evolving dynamics of the digital world. There is so much to learn and expand your creativity. There are so many tools to experiment with and diversify your knowledge. Eventually I will be going into more detail for digital recognition of the department. I plan to start a TRIO SSS blog and publish soft stories from the leaders as well as students to build a personal connection to the program.

My evolution from student to employee

It is little different experience from being a student to an employee. Although I had worked in TMCC as a student worker before but the roles and responsibilities of a full-time professional employee are a lot different. The schedules are more flexible and the approach to the tasks is more independent. The bar of responsibility and accountable is raised here but makes you feel more motivated towards accomplishing the tasks.

My future plans

Not only am I following my career path but also following it passionately and at the same time giving it back to my alma mater. Going down the lane, I hope to start my own digital media and online reputation management firm, and channelize it across the globe. It is definitely going to require consistent hard work, dedicated work experience, and absolute expertise in my field.

Former international student Aanchal Tangri from India graduated Truckee Meadows Community College in Reno, Nevada. She now works as a digital media program specialist in the college’s TRIO department.