My name is Alyssa Mendez and I am a student majoring in Social Work here at the University of Montana (U of M). Every summer, I return back to Helena, MT to help out at my family’s restaurant, El Vaquero Taqueria. It is only my parents working and running the place from 4 a.m. till 4 p.m. with opening hours beginning from 11 a.m. till 2 p.m.. After receiving news that I had to choose my Beyond the Classroom (BTC) Experience to take in the 2024 summer semester for the Global Leadership Initiative (GLI), I got to work finding an internship or experience that is flexible with my work hours while in the same area as Helena.

I have chosen “Culture and Politics” as my theme for GLI because I found it to be a great way to improve my skills in the Social Work major when the profession aims to work with people of all lifestyles, backgrounds, identities, social challenges, and public health. For my BTC Experience, I took an online learning/internship course through the UM Global Career Accelerator. This online program aims to provide students opportunities to choose one out of four tracks, Digital Marketing, Coding of Web, Data Analytics, and Coding for Data, they want to study in and engage in real-life experiences such as projects for companies (Uber, Netflix, airbnb, Zillow, DoorDash, Shopify, etc.) while taking the online learning courses of their chosen track to improve their skills in the digital world. 

Ever since the aftermath of the Covid pandemic, the cost of necessities have gone up to the point communities struggle with maintaining lifestyles in not only Missoula, but across the state of Montana. Housing costs are rising, quantities of food are going down in supermarkets as prices go up, Montanans fear losing access to water due to pricing debates over the source, and there have been more unhoused residents than ever before. To address these challenges, GLI requires their students to come up with a Global Challenge that connects to their theme. So, I chose to address financial barriers within politics as my Global Challenge and studied ways of breaking these barriers through the Digital Marketing track in order to improve accessibility to basic needs as it correlates to one’s quality life. 

The Global Career Accelerator was truly a life saver and very flexible! All you need is a laptop with a camera and internet. The program was very helpful in getting students situated in the course with assistance from coaches, video meetings scheduled only twice a week, and learning modules that are required to be completed online. For the Digital Marketing course, the experience is broken in two parts; the first part is teaching students the basics of digital marketing, such as understanding customer personas, discounts, how to set up a website, and following brandbooks while the second part focuses on social media, creating campaigns, reading sales statistics, and budgeting.

I am grateful for this overall experience for providing me not only the time and flexibility to manage work and help my family out, but for the in-depth teachings of Digital Marketing I can apply towards Social Work. I would highly recommend anyone to take this online experience if they are searching for flexibility for their work and school.