Kortney's Blog

As my career at ONU wraps up, there are many things I have learned and many things I regret not doing. One of my favorite photos I took on campus (November 2017). Amongst the things I have learned, I have learned to always go for any open opportunity you have to better yourself and your career. Whenever a door opens for you that could  be beneficial to you, take the chance. This has proven to be very helpful in these past few years when job and internship searching. Another thing I have learned is to do something diverse from your major. For example, I took this social media course. I have a Marketing minor, but I did not have to choose this course for one of my electives. I chose to in order to develop my online and social media skills from a professional side of things. I know that there is a pretty great chance I will not be needing to use these skills in my job after ONU, but I will still be working at the boutique "at home" and doing all their social media. One

Over the weekend, I had my bridal shower. I have been stressing for weeks trying to plan this and deal with school. However, the day finally arrived and it went wonderfully. I was overwhelmed with the entire experience and it was truly a great, yet tiring, day. On Friday, I went to the venue and set up and decorated with my mom, grandma, mother-in-law, sister-in-law, and maid of honor. Saturday morning we all met very early to get food going and ready for the brunch. We played several games including a contest for the best toilet paper dress, Jeopardy, Family Feud, and Put a Ring on it. There were more people that attended than I had expected and my fiancé and I were incredibly blessed with the generosity of our friends and family. This makes me even more excited for the wedding and our future together.

This past August I went to St. Augustine, Florida, with my fiancé and his family. We accidentally booked a condo there instead of Myrtle Beach and it ended up being the best mistake we could do! We went to many historical monuments there. We visited a fort from the 1500s and found out that the pilgrims actually were not the first people to come to the US. Spaniards were actually the first ones to colonize the United States. After I did a quick Google search about things to do in the area, I found a place called Ginnie Springs that was only two hours from our condo. I convinced my fiancé and his family to drive us there one day. Ginnie Springs is a series of natural, crystal clear springs that are extremely picturesque. Of course, I forgot to bring my underwater camera so I got no photos of inside the springs. Each spring has different caves and are around 54 degrees. I was the first one in the water and it was certainly a shock to be in water that cold. I quickly got used to it (or n

In Chapter 10, we read about measurement and evaluation when it comes to social media. This chapter was actually relatable to my current job at Boutique 415 and Polished. As mentioned in the chapter, many people think that social media is easy and free for businesses. In order to get anything from it, these things are actually false. A lot of hard work and planning goes into running a successful social media account for your business. Because of this, having a social media budget is crucial for any business. Here is a guideline of things to think about when budgeting for social media: Tools (smartphones, software, computers, etc.) People (social media specialists) Consulting Fees (if work is needed from an outside source or firm) Research Education (books, webinars, certifications, etc.) Promotion and Sponsored Content With my job, I can relate to a few of these. The first one would be tools. My boss brings her laptop to work everyday in order for me to create content a

As many know, my major is Risk Management and Insurance. For awhile now, I have heard rumors that ONU was going to get rid of RMI as a major. Unfortunately, these rumors were true and I received the email that it will no longer be offered for incoming students. This made me very grateful that I am graduating just in time before it is no longer offered, but it also made me sad that incoming students will not have the opportunities or see what all the Risk Management and Insurance industries have to offer. As a freshman, I was introduced to the RMI major. It was something that sparked some interest and I thought it was worth looking up. Because of that, I have dedicated my entire career to RMI. When researching it, I found that there is a 100% job placement rate for anyone seeking work in those industries. There are more people retiring from the industries than coming into them. This makes jobs very secure. Another part that is interesting to me is that the insurance industry is alw

I am just wrapping up a much needed break from school and opportunity to see family. Having Easter late this year was definitely a blessing with all the chaos and stress from school and life going on. On Friday, my parents and I took a drive up to the Toledo Zoo to watch the animals get their Easter eggs. This is a tradition my dad and I have done for years, but my mom finally got to tag along this year. My favorite part was probably the gorillas getting their eggs. They tend to hoard them and hide them. This trip was especially important to me as my dad is about to get open heart surgery next week. That whole part is scary but it was great getting to spend time with him before he has to be healing. My mom and I a second before we both fell off the buffalo. On Saturday, my family and I celebrated Easter and April/May birthdays at my aunt's house. We had lots of fun and it was great getting the family together. On Easter, I had two church services and three Easter's to

A little known fact about me is that I have had a piece of my artwork get put into an art gallery in Lima, Ohio. In my art class during my senior year of high school my teacher told me to create a drawing that is unique and gave me no other guidelines. With that information, I sat and thought about what I wanted to do. I decided I wanted to draw a photo from New York City. I found a photo online and used it as my reference the entire time. I also decided I wanted to not just draw a photo of the city, but I wanted to make it a drawing or photo no one has seen before. I decided to keep with cool colors for the background, and warm yellows for the taxis. I went online and found this photo for reference (I do not know who took the photo): From that photo, I spent 13 weeks drawing each individual detail that I could. I worked on shading, shapes, and dimension. This, by far, was the most challenging part of the process. After I had it all drawn out and measured out, I spent 2 weeks

I am currently enrolled in ONU's first ever memetic communications course. This course has to do with memes and where they originated from and how there are many uses for them. When I first enrolled in this course, I had the mentality that I already knew most of the material and that this course would be an "easy A." I quickly found out I was very wrong. There are many different aspects about memes, or memetic artifacts, that are confusing if you do not already study memes. For example, terms like lingua franca, vernacular creativity, and cultural capital are thrown around frequently. If you have no idea what these terms mean, then this course can get confusing. However, this course did open my eyes to a whole meme "industry." In this industry, there are people who are creating memes with many contextual layers that are geared towards what audiences want to see. In industry or market terms, meme creators are the suppliers for the audience who are the dema

Content marketing is everywhere even if we do not always realize it. When looking at a company's blog, the regular viewer may just see a blog post. However, someone who is familiar with content planning can see a calculated way each post is created and posted that best fits the audiences needs. Content marketing is promoting content to large audiences. In order to do this successfully, there are a few things that content curators have to keep in mind: 1. Make a Connection Making a connection with the audience is possibly the most important thing content curators must remember. If there is no connection with the audience, then there will be little to no engagement or traction to your posts (blogs, Facebook statuses, etc). 2. Start a Dialogue ...and stick with it! Content curators cannot change how they write or what they write about too much if at all. Having a dialogue can even create a sense of reliability. If a viewer notices something is different in the way that a po

I have a passion for traveling and adventures. I try to do both of them when I can. I have compiled a list of places I want to travel to before I am 50: 1. Switzerland I don't have a specific place in Switzerland that I want to go. My great-grandfather came from Switzerland as a young child. I would like to see what it looks like where he was born and raised. 2. Nebraska This one seems random, but it's one of the most important places I want to travel. My grandmother was adopted from Nebraska. She passed away before I was born and I am named after her. We know very little about her biological family other than she had lots of siblings. She was adopted a year before Nebraska adoption records were made public and her adoption papers were burnt in a fire. I would love to know more about her and her biological family. 3. Venice, Italy I would love to go to Venice. The photos are beautiful and I'd like to explore its history. 4. South Africa I would love to experi

One of the most important things for any working person to have is a healthy work-life balance. Not many people think about the importance of a work-life balance for college students. Most of the students I know also have a job on top of their courses. Most of these students are mentally and physically exhausted because they do not get a break from work or school. These busy schedules leave little time for any "life." For example, let's say a student works 25 hours per week. They are enrolled in six classes. Each class is an hour long. This means the student is unavailable for at least  31 hours per week. On top of just going to class and work, they also have assignments and coursework. Let's say each course requires at least  two hours of preparation before each  class. This means that there's another 30 hours (if there is three classes per day) of work being put in just to be able to keep up and succeed in the courses. In total, that's 61 hours of work

As one of the assignments for my Social Media Principals course, we were assigned to make an infographic regarding one of the speakers from the Social Media Workshop that we attended March 22. I chose to make my infographic based off the information we received from Mary Jo DiSalvo. DiSalvo discussed the Dublin Irish Festival with us. The Dublin Irish Festival takes place in Dublin, Ohio, and honors the Irish culture. The event started in 1988 and has gone from only being in a park to now being a 40 acre event. Below is the infographic I have created regarding the presentation: Starting at the top of the infographic, I made a chart to breakdown the gross revenue from the 2018 festival. Overall, there was $1,823,000 in gross revenue. The breakdown of this is $908,000 from beverage purchases, $627,000 from admissions, and $288,000 from sponsorships. The next chart is a breakdown of the social media activity during the event. DiSalvo shared that more than 55,000 people turned to T

As graduation approaches, I have been catching myself thinking about what's to come after graduation. Here is a list of thoughts I have on almost a daily basis now that I'm a senior. 1. Who is letting me be an adult? 2. I don't want to grow up. Let's be honest. All I want to do is color in a coloring book and drink a margarita anymore. 3. Time needs to slow down. 4. I can't believe I'm almost done with schooling. I think this multiple times a day. College seemed so far away in middle school. 5. Senioritis is so real. 6. I can't wait to be done. I go between not wanting to be done with college and being beyond done with college daily . 7. These loans are going to kill me. 8. Is it even worth it? I still think this even with only 6 weeks left. 9. I can't believe I made it.' College has been the hardest yet most rewarding decision of my life.

As the end of the semester nears, it seems that nearly every student becomes more stressed by the day. I have compiled a list of ways to help reduce stress in these last 6 week of the semester. 1. Plan time to study. The earlier you begin studying and setting time aside to focus on one topic, the less stressed you'll be when finals week comes. Focusing on one topic at a time will give your brain a break from focusing on a million other things. 2. Make time for breaks. Make time fro you to have a break. Schedule it if you have to. Having a break is a necessity for anyone, let alone a stressed college student. 3. Take things in small parts. A lot of people, including myself, get very stressed very quickly when given a task and looking at the entire task at once. Break studying, assignments, or projects into smaller parts and just take it one part at a time. 4. Sleep. It's rare that anyone has a normal sleep schedule while in college. During these final few weeks,

In Chapter 8, we discussed audience segmentation. This topic got me thinking about my job. At the boutique, the clothing and items we have tends to target middle aged women. Because of this, we tend to use social media in such a way that middle aged women are targeted with the posts depending on the platform. For example, the majority of our posts are on Facebook. This is where most of the customers that come into the boutique see our sales before shopping. A majority of our customers are already clients of the salon and many mention how they are always on Facebook. We decided that using Facebook to advertise could potentially increase sales for the boutique. Observing what goes on in the shop and salon has helped me target the audience and segment how our social media is used. Another example of market segmentation is what we post on Instagram. When I started my job, I was given the responsibility to revamp the Instagram for both the salon and the boutique. When given this resp

Without a doubt, Friends  is my favorite show of all time. It blows my mind when someone mentions that they have not watched more than an episode of Friends . I, on the other hand, have watched every single episode at least three times. I have compiled a list of reasons you should watch Friends : 1. It's relatable.  Let's be honest, we all know a Joey, Rachel, Phoebe, or Ross. 2. It's a great way to spend a vacation. There is about 85 hours of watching if you put every single episode together. That is about 2 weeks of watching Friends  if you watch it every day for 8 hours a day. It's possible. Not that I have done that before... 3. Phoebe. Phoebe is probably one of my favorite characters. Everyone has that one friend that is just  like her. We all appreciate that said friend. So, why not watch the television version of them? 4. Your love for your friends will grow. When watching it, you begin to realize the importance of your friends you have now.

Last Friday, March 22, I attended the Social Media Workshop here at ONU. I listened to several speakers and got tons of helpful information.  My favorite speaker was probably Amanda Todorovich. She is the leader of the team that makes all of the Cleveland Clinic's blogs. I have used the Health Essentials blog a few times to get information and can say that I get why it is so successful. She talked about what to post and what not to post. She went in depth about that people only want to see what they care about and that they want consistency.  One of her statements struck me the most and that was, "Don't just look at data. Listen to data." A lot of people will gather data and analyze it. However, most of those people will not do much with that data or "listen" to what it is telling you. She said that her team takes data from each post, week, month, and year and analyzes it then listens to it. By listening to the data, her team as able to find that t

This past weekend has been very busy and very eventful. Friday I attended the Social Media Workshop here on campus, but afterwards I immediately left for Nashville with my fiancé and his family. Friday night we drove about 4 and a half hours and stopped somewhere in Kentucky for the night. Saturday we finished driving and explored downtown for awhile. My fiancé, DeLee, and I in front of one of the Old Marathon car factory. The first stop we made was to my fiancé's dad's favorite stop -- Antique Archaeology. This is the store that Mike and Frank from American Pickers  owns. Next we went to the old Marathon car factory and did tastings at the Tennessee Distillery and a winery within the building. By the time we were done with this, we had to check into our hotel before we went to the UFC fights. DeLee's Selfie with Tyron Woodley The next stop was my favorite. We headed down to the Bridgestone Arena to watch the UFC fights. The main event was Anthony "

Capstone is a project that many universities have and what every student at ONU has to go through in order to graduate. As it being my final year at ONU, I am currently doing a Capstone project. For business students, Capstone is when real clients are assigned to students to help solve real problems they are facing in their company or industry. Throughout last semester and this semester thus far, I have experienced many trials and tribulations with this project. From my teammates to our assignments, the project has been anything but easy. However, I have learned so much from it and it has changed me for the better. The first thing I have learned is time management. Time management is key when it comes to large group projects such as this. Each semester, we have created a Gantt chart to help our team stay on track. We had to decide which aspects of each assignment need attention the most and the longest and assign different members to it as needed. The second thing I have learn

As a few know, I am an only child. Many people ask me "did you ever get bored?" or "how did you survive just having your parents?" when they find out I have no siblings. However, I am here to list a few benefits that being an only child has given me: 1. I got to hog the backseat on road trips. I have gone on a few road trips with other families where the constant argument was who was taking more room in the backseat. As for me, I only had to decide where I wanted my feet when taking up the whole backseat. 2. I am better at sharing. My parents were conscious about the "only child" stereotype. They would make me share with them, the neighbor boy, or my pets to teach me the valuable lesson at a young age. As I have gotten older, I found that I am better at sharing than most people I have encountered that have siblings. 3. I have always been mature for my age. Only being around my parents and their friends from a very young age, I have always been

Something that I have found fascinating in chapter 6 is the fact that strategic planning is everywhere and can take many forms. In the business college, we have several courses based solely on strategic planning. In business, strategic planning is generally used with how to gain more market share, profits, or revenues. In social media, strategic planning can be used to grow brand awareness. Brand awareness can either be for a personal brand or a professional/business brand. Being able to strategically plan your posts, content, and information that you are loading onto the Internet and greatly drive who your audience is and how they will react. There are many ways that this relates directly to the business world. For example, say that a small, start up company wants to grow their presence online in hopes of getting more customers. This company would have to create a plan on how to get from point A to point B in the most efficient and effective way. For this company, they would ha

My Social Media Principles course has convinced me to think more about social media and how it is becoming increasingly more important rapidly. We have been talking about creating a professional and a personal brand in Chapter 4 of our book. This chapter convinced me to revamp or redo my social media. I currently have a very small following on all of my social media platforms. All of them are currently private, as well. However, I have noticed that I am not consistent through all of my platforms. For example, Facebook is very family oriented for me and very informal. My LinkedIn account is very professional, and my Instagram is very random. On Instagram, I usually post whatever I want. All three of these are set to private and not public. I do have a Twitter account, but I  never use it. I literally have 5 followers and only logged back into it so I can do my live tweeting assignment I decided to start revamping my social media with Twitter account. Since I have a very, very sma

As a college students, these are some things most of us say at least once during our college career: 1. "I think I'll stay in tonight." Everyone says this, then decides to go out at last minute because your youth isn't forever. 2. "I need to go to the library. I need to do good tomorrow." For the most part, this means that we are going to find a spot in the library to sleep and be on social media. 3. "I'll wake up early tomorrow and do it." I am 100% guilty of this, and whatever was going to get done does not get done. 4. "I'm going to head to the gym." We all have good intentions, but pizza usually wins. 5. "I deserve this." We say this many times. Sometimes, we say it when we are thinking about what we need to accomplish. Other times it means that we're shopping on Amazon at 3 AM trying to justify spending our last $15 on a taco holder. 6. "I think my professors are trying to destroy me.&qu

Over the weekend, I attend the Sunday showing of the International Play Festival: India where the play Hayavadana was performed by ONU students. This play was beautifully executed with minimal props, which made the imaginations of the viewers go wild. The live, authentic music was a plus, too. Live music performed before, during, and after the performance. I used this event for my live tweeting assignment. I quickly found out this was not the best event to live tweet because no phones or photography were permitted. However, i was able to tweet before, at intermission, and after the play. Hayavadana is a out two men who fall in love with the same woman and that same woman falling in love with both of them. The two men, Devadatta and Kapila, are best friends and feel betrayed when they find out they're both in love with the same woman, Padmini. Padmini ends up marrying and having a child with Kapila. About half way through the play, Devadatta gives his head as a sacrific

There are a million things to think about when planning a wedding. From the traditions, to the ceremony, to the reception, there are many different choices and questions that just seem to be endless. As a few know, I am having a Mexican-American wedding. My fiancé is 100% Mexican and so is his family. I have learned so much and have learned to love everything about Mexican culture. However, there are many differences between Mexican and American weddings. For our wedding, we have decided to make everything 50/50. This means we are making our ceremony in half Spanish and half English, we are having half Spanish and half English music, we are having both Mexican and American traditions in our ceremony, and we are combining Catholic and Methodist religions equally. This makes everything just a little harder, but a lot more worth it. For our ceremony, we are having the Pastor from my church (I am Methodist) come to another Methodist church and we invited a Catholic Priest who speak

Ohio Northern is or once was home for many people including myself. As the end of my time at ONU is coming to an end, I have been reflecting on just how ONU has changed me. The first major way that I noticed ONU change me is in my maturity. Before coming to ONU my freshman year, I was the typical immature high school senior that did not have a care in the world. I would do what I wanted and only craved to be "free." Within the first few months of being at ONU, I found that I was rapidly maturing because I was "on my own" even though I was living on campus. It made me learn time management, not to procrastinate, and to work hard so you can play harder. The second way that ONU changed me is by making me realize I can be more than I ever thought I could be. I had always been the carefree person in high school because I did not realize what I was capable of. I use to think that I was only able to go as far as my grades would let me (I was not an all A student to

Social media is shaping and changing the way I am viewing business. Because I use social media on a daily basis for my job, I am starting to see how it can propel a business and grow brand awareness. At first, I thought of social media as a unprofessional way of dealing with business and that it should not really be used for professional things such as business. However, that as changed over the last few months. Because of my job, I am able to get a "behind the scenes" look at how social media can improve a business. Whenever I take Boutique 415 or Polished to an event, I always promote the event on social media. I then can see how well the post is performing and whether or not people are interested in going to the event if I create an actual event on our page. Generally, our event posts attract more attention than our regular posts. This has showed me that posting about events does generate more attention towards your business. Another way that social media has change

As I have mentioned several times before, I am in charge of all social media for the business/businesses that I work for. Recently, my boss has brought up that she would like to sell items online to expand her store and increase sales. I have been working endlessly on designing a website and taking and editing photos for the items that are being sold to get her goal accomplished. It has been long hours of work but, I am finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.  Last weekend, she wanted to do a live video on Facebook to promote new arrivals and to allow people to order them through the video. Luckily, I had the help from her daughter for the video. However, I was a lot more nervous than I thought I would be for the video. I have never gone live on any social media platform on both my personal pages and the business pages. There was hours of preparation put into this live video (which only lasted 12 minutes). The steps and thing we had to accomplish before going live

A thing that fascinates me is some of the laws in other countries around the world. Some of them are crazy, and some of them sound like there is no reason for them. I have compiled a list of weird laws from around the world below: 1. Don't Frown As crazy as it sounds, it is illegal to frown in Milan unless you are attending a funeral or visiting someone in the hospital. 2. No Gum Allowed Gum is a staple in most people's bags, purses, etc. This is not the case in Singapore. Gum is not bought or sold in Singapore in order to keep their public places cleaner. This makes chewing gum illegal! 3. Use both Feet to Pedal If you ride a bike in Mexico, make sure you keep both feet on the pedals. It is illegal to take both feet off the pedals while biking because it can cause harm if you lose control. 4. Don't Spit Out the Window It is illegal to spit out the window of a car or bus in Marietta, Georgia. However, it is legal to spit from a truck! 5. Don't Fly with

When I tell people that I am engaged, they usually tell me, "But, you are so young!" or "I think you are too young to know he is the one for you." The list goes on and on. Then, of course it is followed up with, "well, congratualtions." But what I do not understand is why people think there is a minimum age that someone has to be in order to get married. I am 22 and my fiancé is 23. Both of our parents were married by 21. What I found odd is that I get these remarks from the generations that were all married by 20 or 21. Many people try to throw facts at us. They tell us, "your brain is not fully developed until 25," "there is no way you will know because you are in college," and "do you think you will be able to handle that with your college? I do not think anyone can." One of my engagement photos. But, I come back with "yes." What some people do not understand is that when you are young and you find the pe

As you may know, I am currently working at a boutique (Boutique 415) and a nail salon (Polished Nail and Body Salon). At these businesses, I am a sales assistant and I also manage all social media for both. Although I am fairly new at using social media for professional use, I have compiled a list of a few tips and tricks that have proven to work for me. 1. Use a Hashtag I know, it sounds obvious. But, using a hashtag can generate a lot of "traffic" to your page. For example, at the boutique, I try to always have "#boutique415" at the end of each page. This allows the viewers to know which company is posting. Along with #boutique415, I also add a few hashtags that go with what is in the photo or post. For example, if I post a photo of a new top that just arrived, I could use #boutique415 and #newarrival. This would attract people who are searching "#newarrival." 2. Post VERY  Frequently For both businesses, I schedule 4 to 6 posts a day. If I am

Recently, I have had the opportunity to interview someone who deals with social media for a business on a regular basis. I interviewed DeLee Salinas. He works in sales at K&M Tire but also helps with their social media pages. We went in depth on how K&M used hashtags for their recent dealer conference and how they paired a very specific hashtag with a very vague hashtag in order to reach a larger audience. See blow for our interview:

My blog is being written for my Principles of Social Media course at ONU. With that being said, we are reading book called The Art of Social Media  by Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick. As I am only at the beginning of the book, I have only learned about a few topics. However, the most interesting chapter I have read is chapter 2, "How to Feed the Content Monster." As soon as I heard that I have to do a blog consistently throughout the semester, I instantly thought about what I would blog about. Personally, I think of myself as a boring person which caused me to panic about not having 45 topics to blog about. However, the second chapter of this book has helped me figure out how to think in order to get a topic. Although the chapter talks a lot about making money through content and social media, I have not intentions of making money with my blogs or marketing any certain product. The guidelines within the chapter can be applied to regular blogging, though. The first sug

As I had mentioned, I am currently majoring in Risk Management and Insurance. When I tell people this, most people ask what it is and why would I ever want to pursue a career in insurance. Truth be told, I never considered insurance until I came to Ohio Northern. During my freshman year, there was a senior that came into one of my classes to talk about the major. She talked about all the different opportunities within the insurance industry. This inspired me to look into the industry and I eventually fell in love with it. So, when people ask me "why would I ever want to pursue a career in insurance," I usually rattle off a list of reasons. Here are my top 3 reasons why I chose insurance: Reason 1: It is a old, yet growing industry. The insurance industry dates back to the 1700s. Throughout the years, it has evolved and grown into many different branches. The main branches that people know are life, health, auto, and property insurance. Because many states require insur

As I had mentioned in my previous blog, I travel as much as I possibly can. The two best places I have travelled are Beqa Island, Fiji, and Matamoros, Mexico.  Given, I have frequented Gatlinburg, Tennessee, for many years and have visited New York City and Los Angeles a few times. However, the most eye-opening and life changing trips were to Fiji and Mexico. Before I went to Fiji, I was under the impression that I was just going to be lazy on the beach and to be apart of my aunt's wedding.  Once I got to Fiji, I quickly learned that I wanted to skip the tourism and get the reality of what it is really like living in this country. On our first few days, we relaxed and snorkeled. Later in our trip, we decided to take a trip into the local village. We hopped on a rickety old boat and headed around the island. When we arrived at the village, we were slapped with a ton of reality, a ton of poverty. The roofs and floors were made of woven palm leaves, there was no running water and no

My name is Kortney and I am currently a senior at Ohio Northern University. My major is in Risk Management and Insurance and my minor is in Marketing. As of now, I am working as a sales assistant and manage all social media for Polished Nail and Body Salon and Boutique 415 in Bluffton, Ohio. After graduation this Spring, I will be working at Ohio Mutual Insurance Group (OMIG) in Bucyrus, Ohio, in the auto material damage (AMD) claims department. I have interned for OMIG in the summer of 2018 and went back to work there temporarily during Winter break 2018.  Through this company, I will be handling multi-party auto claims and working on getting several different designations such as Associate in Claims (AIC), Associate in General Insurance (AINS), and eventually Certified Property and Casualty Underwriter (CPCU).  For those who are not familiar with the insurance industry, the CPCU is considered "the doctorate of insurance". A photo from my Fiji trip. Whenever I do