Gema Acevedo (left) talks to editing, writing, and media students about being confident and showcasing their strengths in the communications field to potential employers. Seated from left: instructor Susan Hellstrom, Maria Velez, and Lindsay Mead.
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our country is in the midst of a financial crisis, and you’ve been laid-off from work. You have very little money to go back to school, but you need to gain a competitive edge against other people looking for jobs. You decide to diversify your resumé by learning a new language, and you decide to get an education in business and marketing. Your university: Netflix, Hulu, and Google. Such was the case for communications and marketing strategist Gema Acevedo of Valencia, who has been a guest speaker in the Editing, Writing, and Media (EWM) Program in Valencia for four of the past five years. An economic crisis hit Spain starting late 2007 partly due to the
Born and raised in Valencia, she didn’t want to leave the city she loved. Thus, she began her journey toward molding a successful future. She taught herself English by watching popular shows in English like Lost and continued to practice with shows such as The Walking Dead and The Handmaid’s Tale. She achieved her goal by listening, reading English subtitles, and conversing with native English speakers. “I couldn’t pay for a master’s, and my parents were also affected by the crisis, so they couldn’t help me either,” Acevedo says. “I improved my English every day by listening and watching the subtitles; I don’t have time or the money to go to a class with a native speaker.” Acevedo looked to online learning as a vital educational resource, given her situation. She took online marketing and communication courses through Google Academies, where she studied online marketing and communication. FSU Valencia Dean and Director Ignacio Messana met Acevedo at a teaching event in 2013 organized by the US Embassy in Spain and the Polytechnic University of Valencia in which they were helping people improve their resumes and teaching them about public speaking, social networks, and personal branding. Acevedo impressed Messana right away. “She’s a combination of a professional person with good communicating and teaching skills, and at the same time, she has a good personality,” Messana says. After Facebook emerged, social media wedged its way into the field of communication and journalism as users began utilizing social media to distribute news and to build brands. Acevedo saw this as an opportunity. Sifting through potential clients’ social media pages and websites, she realized the clients could improve the way these platforms were used. Acevedo made her talents known by direct messaging potential clients on their Instagram accounts or by showing up in person and explaining how she could boost their image. In the old days, this was known as cold-calling, and Acevedo admitted to the EWM students that it was difficult.
A risk taker and path maker Valencian Gema Acevedo encourages students to create the career they want Article and photos by Tomas Cabezas global recession affecting other Eurozone countries. The crisis lagged on, and as a result, Acevedo lost her job as a reporter for a Valencian news station when the station closed due to financial issues in 2013. “When I got fired from the TV station, I cried a lot, but I thought ‘OK it’s time to make it on my own, to be a journalist by myself,’” she says.
16 Nomadic Noles // Summer 2018
