This upcoming fall semester, advertising and public relations instructor Mike Vasas is creating a new course: Mixtape MSU. This course is for students interested in learning more about their personal creative process and exploring values of creative storytelling through communication, strategy and promotion. 

The course can be found under ADV 492 section 301 and is a special topics advertising class, but is open to any returning student in any major. 

The main takeaway is that students personally reflect on wellness and process their feelings and experiences while being unified with the other students in the class. 

“I thought about how creative expression helps people heal and brings people together and I imagined for this course, a space for people to find or refine their voices,” Vasas said. “(Also) being able to process their feelings and to be able to just grow a creative community with the students in the class.” 

Vasas named it Mixtape MSU because of the idea that a mixtape can either be a collection of music recordings or various personal expressions in traditional and nontraditional styles. By taking this course, students would have the chance to “process feelings and bolster their own creative community” as they make music (poems, songs, etc.) in essence.

No musical skills are needed in order to take this course, but instead, just a desire to create and be vulnerable in developing their skills throughout the semester. Vasas encourages any returning student to join as a way to share their opinions and experiences about any matter in their life.

“They don’t have to just go do it in their apartments or in their dorms, but they actually feel as though the university is embracing their willingness to use their voice in this way,” Vasas said.