"I joined MSUMA the fall semester of my freshman year because I was really just trying to find some kind of community to make campus feel smaller," Fretz said. "When I got onto campus it felt very large, very overwhelming. I found MSUMA because my friends were going… the more I went the more I realized, 'wow this is actually really cool.'"

For their first members-only-meeting of the semester, the group welcomed finance senior and peer career coach at the Russell Palmer Career Center Molly Longman as a guest speaker.

In her talk Longman explained how to dress, how to start conversation with employers and the importance of networking. Marketing junior Paulina Valdes spoke on their importance of this for all members of MSUMA, not just the marketing majors.

"We have a lot of advertising majors, computer science, engineering just to kind of help them become confident in themselves and learn about how to market yourself," Valdes said. "One of our biggest mottos is everyone needs to learn how to market themselves."

Along with helping prepare students to put their best foot forward at career events, they help get students' foot in the door. MSUMA will regularly host different guest speakers to talk to them about their company and provide a networking opportunity. This month the group will be hosting Hyatt, one of their regular visitors. Marketing senior and MSUMA general member Brooke Leroux has had great experiences with these visits.

One of Leroux’s favorite visits is when a representative from Hyatt has come in the past two years of her membership with MSUMA. This has allowed her to make a valuable connection in marketing, specifically in the hospitality industry.

"(The representative) is actually a GM for Hyatt out in Chicago and he’s an MSU alum," Leroux said. "You can personally reach out to him and he’s going to connect you with those people to help you get a job."

Along with networking opportunities, guest speakers provide members with the opportunity to learn the current happenings in the marketing industry and innovations that are producing major changes.

"It’s an everchanging subject and field to be in and those questions come up at every meeting," Fretz said. "How do you stay up to date on these trends? MSUMA allows you to gain that knowledge both technically and network-wise."

Not everything MSUMA does is focused on life post-grad. The e-board is currently working on changing the curriculum at MSU for marketing students.

"I definitely think that transitioning the curriculum into more of a less theoretical, more real world applied would definitely help," Fretz said. "Instead, it’s following the curriculum of, 'here’s the terminology you need to know, these are the formulas you need to memorize.' But marketing is not that. Marketing change so rapidly that there’s no 100% set way to learn the curriculum."

The changes within marketing can help to expose members to different sides of marketing, show all the different things that can be done with their degree and find options for different career paths. This is one of Valdes favorite part of being in MSUMA.

"There’s a couple people that I now saw go from freshman year to sophomore year and learn what they want to do in marketing and become so much more confident in themselves," Valdes said. "It’s really cool seeing how your hard work can actually help people."

Similar to Valdes, Fretz enjoys seeing the growth of members and learning the "why?" behind their decision to become a part of MSU, the marketing major and MSUMA.

"Learning everyone’s why is always something I strive to do," Fretz said. "MSU as a whole has taught me the importance of the question why and always asking people for their reasoning behind things. And I’ll do the same as a professional."