83557D56-9CFB-2DE8-4FDF43A8E7C74994
8D6B7FEE-BB22-4F02-A0F5083DA14071E9
The communications industry includes fields such as advertising, Public Relations, Publishing, Media and Broadcasting. Hamiltonians in this industry work at places such as ESPN, Amazon, Harper Collins, The New York Times and more.

Scroll through the blog posts and stories below to learn more about Hamilton student and alumni experiences in this industry. Finally, meet with your career advisor and explore the Career Center curriculum to learn how to network with alumni to discuss your interests and learn more about their work.

Communications Career Blog

Interview with Becca Lunt ’17 of Best Buy Health

Becca Lunt '17
Becca Lunt '17
Tags Communications

Becca Lunt ‘17 is a senior specialist in external communications at Best Buy. Her focus is Best Buy Health, which includes the health and wellness product categories, as well as the active aging and virtual care businesses. In the following interview, Lunt details her experience at Hamilton and how it influenced her career path.

Did you know that you were passionate about communications at the beginning of your college experience, or did your interests change and develop during your time at Hamilton?

A career in communications wasn’t even on my radar when I started at Hamilton. I came into college loving chemistry and math – but then I learned that science labs were four hours long and let’s just say I didn’t thrive in the one math class I took. So, I took a hard right turn and ended up as a classics major with minors in art and anthropology. I love classical literature and can talk for days about The Aeneid and Ovid’s Metamorphosis.

Early in my career, my managers realized I was a good writer, and that I could write fast (an advantage in the agency world), so I got put on a lot of writing projects like contributing articles and blog posts. I loved getting to develop the story myself, using the principles of storytelling I learned at Hamilton and from my classics classes.

Were there any classes that really sparked your interest in this industry? 

I didn’t know it at the time, but the anthropology classes I took at Hamilton helped set a basis for my career in communications. I loved Professor Ladusa’s classes, so I ended up learning a lot about sociolinguistics. As it turns out, a lot of the principles and theories in linguistics are also the basis of the communications field. I also found myself tapping into my Anthropology of Food class knowledge when I was doing agriculture PR.

What was your experience like finding a job post-graduation? How did you find the right fit when it came to finding a place to work?

I grew up with parents who were big believers in liberal arts philosophy – learn how to learn and you can do (virtually) any career from there. So, I knew I wanted to spend my four years of college just enjoying learning. I loved the Latin language and even though I knew I didn’t want to have a career in the field, I knew there would never be another time in my life where I got to really dig into it and learn from some of the best professors in the country. But when it came time to graduate, I had no idea what I wanted to do for my career.

I did know two things, however: 

  1. I wanted to move to Boston – I know, classic Hamilton alum move.
  2. In the future, once I was older and settled, I wanted to start a nonprofit focused on young adult cancer survivors. (For some background, my freshman year at Hamilton I was diagnosed and went through treatment for Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. I’ve been fully in remission for 8 years now.)

With those two motivations in mind, I was lucky enough to find a job in Boston with Expert Miracles Foundation. I assisted with events and ran the young professionals group. I was pegged early on as a writer (thank you, Hamilton), and took a fancy to writing blog posts, web copy, social media posts, and press releases. 

That set the foundation and gave me some good experience I could point to when I moved to Minneapolis (to be with my boyfriend, also a Hamilton grad class of 2017) and started looking for a new job. After doing a ton of networking – some with a handful of Hamilton alums in the Twin Cities – I figured out that the public relations world would be a good fit and ended up getting a job as an assistant account executive at a small business-to-business (B2B) PR and content strategy firm. 

How has your time at Hamilton helped you in your work? 

I spent almost four years in the B2B PR agency world, moving between verticals in healthcare, manufacturing, and agriculture. I found myself having to become the expert on a range of niche, very scientific, complicated topics – from how to clean an endoscope to cooling liquids for data centers to the best feed for optimal young pig nutrition – and I loved it. It reminded me of being back at Hamilton, being given complex and complicated material, having to figure out what questions to ask, and then analyzing and articulating the information clearly and concisely in a way the public would understand through different forms of media.

Can you walk me through a day at work for you? What are your favorite parts of your work? What do you find the most challenging?

The main part of my role at Best Buy is to support the external communications (what gets said to the public) for all things Best Buy Health, which is a relatively new space for the company. I’m getting in at an exciting time because I get to really help build the communications strategy for the Health division from the ground up – an opportunity that doesn’t come up at Fortune 100 companies often.

The average day is always changing, but it typically involves story mining with executives on what is coming up for the business, developing story angles, developing the pitch strategy and media lists, pitching or evaluating press opportunities, and writing or reviewing press releases and blog posts.

What advice would you give to Hamilton students currently interested in pursuing a career in communications?

When I thought about my career when I was just starting out, I always assumed to “make it” I had to work in a major city on the coasts – New York, San Francisco, etc., even though I never really saw myself enjoying living in those places. But I have learned the work I did in the Twin Cities was just as valid as the work agencies in the big cities did.

My advice is don’t write off a place because you are afraid your career won’t feel as “valid” compared to classmates in larger areas. I am proud of the career I’ve built here – and now I work for a Fortune 100 company. But do write off the Twin Cities if you don’t like the cold.



All Entries

Help us provide an accessible education, offer innovative resources and programs, and foster intellectual exploration.

Site Search