Amelia Lerret wasn’t even through her first year in the Diederich College of Communication and she was already sitting in the conference room of BVK, a creative agency located north of Milwaukee. In front of her and six of her peers stood a team of account executives who walked the students through the inner workings of an integrated communications firm.
It was the best classroom Lerret could have asked for.
“It was so insightful to hear about the career path I could take from professionals who are doing it now,” says Lerret, a rising sophomore majoring in journalism.
The visit was part of the Diederich Experience initiative, a series of site visits arranged by the college to connect students with Marquette alumni.
The annual trips include cities around the country, from Los Angeles to Chicago to San Juan, Puerto Rico. Recently, the college added site visits around Milwaukee for students who want to make connections with employers closer to home.
Over the course of the 2025-26 academic year, students visited public relations firm Mueller Communications, video production company Plum Media and financial services company Baird. Each visit involved students getting site tours and extended face time with alumni.
“The alumni gave me a lot of reassurance that everything happens for a reason, and everything will happen at its given time,” says Luciana Jaramillo, a rising junior majoring in digital media. “I think that was a valuable piece of advice for me, as was their advice to just dip your toes in everything you can.”
Students aren’t the only ones who look forward to the employer visits. Dr. Ann Knabe, Comm ’90, Ph.D. ’11, a senior public relations counselor at BVK, remembers going on similar trips when she was a Marquette student. On those excursions, alumni stressed the importance of giving back to the professional community. Knabe took that lesson to heart, along with plenty of others from her time at Marquette.
“Marquette taught us how to instill a certain set of morals and values into our work, which was so important,” Knabe says. “I really believe that’s one of the things that distinguishes Marquette from other institutions.”
For over an hour, professionals from BVK walked students through examples of campaigns they’d recently done for clients. One involved a partnership with former NFL all-star Rob Gronkowski, who the firm had contracted to do influencer work on behalf of recreational vehicle company Go RVing. Another featured a series of advertisements dedicated to stopping human trafficking, produced by Serve Marketing, the agency’s nonprofit arm.
Through each of these campaigns, the BVK team revealed to students how the marketing and public relations businesses functioned in the real world.
“Some of the things Marquette graduates told me when I was a student still stick with me today, and I find it important to give back to that community whenever I can.”
Dr. Ann Knabe, account director at BVK
“When I was breaking into the field, we did a lot of press release writing and blind media pitching; that’s sort of what you did in your first job,” Knabe says. “With the advent of new technology over the last couple decades, you have social media management, influencer marketing — the whole world of earned media and PR has expended tremendously.”
“Listening to them talk made me realize that everything I’m doing in my classes is applicable to situations I’m going to encounter in the workforce, which was really cool to realize,” Lerret says.
In an age of limitless competition for attention, relationships matter more than ever. Knabe estimates that 75 percent of pitches that result in a media placement come from a prior engagement with a specific reporter, rather than an email blast or a news release.
“It can’t be overstated how important that is. If your average editor is getting 300 emails per day, the fact that they knew my name is the surest way to have mine stick out,” Knabe says.
This principle informs more than just BVK’s approach to public relations: it also shapes the way Diederich College of Communication alumni interact with their alma mater. Over the 2025-26 academic year, Marquette alumni hosted current students at the Nashville Predators’ arena, the headquarters of Creative Artists Agency in Los Angeles and multimedia entertainment conglomerate WAPA Media Group, based in Puerto Rico.
At each stop, Marquette alumni get to know students personally and share wisdom from their careers. These alumni also visit the college for panels and networking sessions.
While students have nothing to immediately offer these businesses — no clients to bring in, no deep expertise to offer yet — the Marquette alumni who work there see the relationships they build by inviting students in as no less important.
“Some of the things Marquette graduates told me when I was a student still stick with me today, and I find it important to give back to that community whenever I can,” Knabe says.
