Student Spotlight with Jacob Glass ’20

Jacob Glass ‘20 is a super busy guy, and does not have plans to slow down anytime soon. Jacob originally transferred to the College of Charleston from Coker College in 2017 and quickly became involved in the CofC community. Currently, in his final semester, he is set to graduate with a major in communication. He dreams of one day owning a marketing firm and perhaps later a beachside bed and breakfast when he ‘retires’. When not in class, Jacob has productively filled his time with internships, the lacrosse club team, the Martin Scholars program, Marketing Club, and working at CisternYard Media.

Last summer, Jacob interned at the media agency Mindshare’s New York City office. He was assigned to the Video Investment Team on the T.J. Maxx account. Jacob mostly helped his team with ensuring daily video deliveries, assisting with budget analyses for upfront buys, and working on other fiscal planning. Jacob described his intern work as being the “liaison between our client [T.J. Maxx] and all television networks.” 

Currently, Jacob works as a marketing intern for the marketing team at Marolina Outdoors, an outdoor apparel company that owns the brands Huk and Nomad. “So far, I have helped the team with creative mockups for social media channels. Another cool project that I helped on was ensuring marketing materials for our two booths at SEWE, the wildlife exposition held annually here in Charleston. I have also learned the components of e-commerce platforms such as Shopify,” Jacob said excitedly.  

It may seem like with all the work Jacob does for his internships that he does not have extra time in the day. But that would be incorrect! Jacob holds the Chair position at CofC’s CisternYard Media. In this executive role, he oversees and leads each CisternYard department in terms of recruiting, budget, event planning, and sales. He first started with CisternYard Media as an assistant sales manager his sophomore year, and then became the head of sales junior year. Jacob reflected on his time with the campus media organization, saying, “CisternYard has helped me immensely in my professional life. It has not only grown my resume, but also has taught me valuable skills in sales, marketing, and business development. It has also helped me gain hands on experience in developing advertising and marketing campaigns.” In his role sophomore year as sales manager, he personally interacted with clients and prospective buyers in order to increase revenue for the student-run organization. He reported increasing sales that year by 200%. This progressive experience with CisternYard Media gave Jacob confidence as he also engaged in new internship experiences where he was again working with different clients and audiences, but on a larger scale. 

Jacob credits his increased ability to oversee and lead others to his time in the Martin Scholars program. The program, designed uniquely for senior-year communication majors at CofC, focuses on experiential learning, networking, and personalized mentoring. Seniors accepted into the program are also enrolled in a special section of COMM 336 for academic credit. The class consists of lectures intermixed with site visits to local communication teams within Charleston-based companies and firms. This year, the current class of Martin Scholars conducted local site visits with communication executives and teams at Boeing, Blackbaud, Rawle Murdy, Chernoff Newman, Byrdhouse Public Relations, WCSC-Live 5 News, and more. Over Spring Break, the group used several teleconferencing platforms to virtually visit with communication executives and companies/firms based in Washington, DC and New York City. This included Google, Landor, Vested, Bloomberg, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Ketchum, Prosek Partners, IPG Media Brands, Peppercomm, Hot Paper Lantern, and even more! 

Jacob reflected on being deeply inspired by his Martin Scholar mentor, Andy Snyder (Director of Business Development at Deskey) and program director and Martin Scholar founder, Tom Martin, (Executive in Residence at the Department of Communication). Jacob expressed that “Tom really does care and wants to help.” Jacob initially met Andy Snyder at the 2018 American Marketing Association conference in New Orleans. During this conference, he listened to many different speakers, but Andy Snyder really stood out to him. He got a chance to meet Andy his sophomore year while Andy was working with the Marketing Club. Jacob expressed that, “Andy was (and is) extremely entertaining and knowledgeable on all things advertising and branding, and I really felt like I could see myself in a similar role.” 

Our chat concluded with Jacob explaining how his communication major has enhanced his creative writing storytelling abilities. A class that enhanced this ability the most was COMM 336. Jacob refers back to his professor, saying, “Tom Martin, the creator, and leader of Martin Scholars, discusses the importance of strong stories and story-telling ability in every class session. Practicing this through writing, presenting, and content creation in and out of class has allowed me to analyze the importance of strong narratives. This ability will hopefully help me land a full-time position in the marketing and communications field after graduation, and maybe one day allow me to tell the story of my own company.” Jacob thanks the College of Charleston for being small enough to do easy networking and hands on learning, yet big enough to allow him the chance to meet people of all kinds!  

Finish strong, Jacob, and we look forward to seeing your many future successes!