People of the Pack: Katie Jenkins

Katie Jenkins is a junior strategic communications major from Sioux Falls. 

Devin Martin: What are you involved with on campus?

Katie Jenkins: I’m involved with Alpha Phi. I’m in Special Olympics Club (and) I do intramural soccer.

DM: What are your roles in those various organizations?

KJ: I’m most active with Alpha Phi. We have a lot of philanthropy events like we have our Red Dress Gala, which is just an event we hold every year to raise money for women’s heart health. I’m pretty involved with that, and we also do the Backpack Program where you pack lunches for kids in Clay County.

DM: What other parts of your sorority do you like?

KJ: I like all of the girls because they’re all my friends. We have a lot of sisterhood events.

DM: With talking about strategic communications, why did you want to go into that field?

KJ: Originally I came in wanting to do journalism, but I just wasn’t feeling it when I was taking my classes, but I still wanted to stay in the department. So I took advertising principles with Teddi Joyce and I loved it, so I decided I was going to stick with that.

DM: What career are you hoping to have in the future, then?

KJ: I’m really torn between advertising and public relations because I like PR writing and I like making advertisements, so I’m still like very torn. I don’t know yet. I will be doing an advertising internship over the summer in Chicago.

DM: Tell me more about the internship and why you wanted to apply.

KJ:  My grandpa’s friend from college is in charge of getting interns. He just asked me if I wanted to do it and I said, “Why not?” It’s in Chicago, and a lot of my family lives there so it seems right. I need to get my foot in the door and he said they are more interested in seniors because they like to offer jobs afterwards and he said he’d take me anyway as a junior.