Andrea Hewitt
January 23, 2018
Andrea (left) with her wife Jennifer (right) and their 3 kids (2017).
Andrea currently works at Red Nova Labs, a tech company in Kansas City. She met her wife, Jennifer Townsend, at Truman. “I like to tell people that between us we graduated with three majors and three minors. I just don’t specify that she’s responsible for two majors and two minors.” Andrea and Jennifer are fostering 3 kids (1, 2, and 3-years-old!) for a year. “When I’m not working or parenting, I like to dabble in wood working. Although, if I’m not using a saw, my kids are usually involved in the wood working. Every 2-year-old should know how to stain a table, right?”
What year did you graduate and what was your concentration?
I graduated in 2012 with a concentration in Journalism.
What extra-/co-curricular activities did you do?
My main focus outside of studies was the Index. I started as a reporter my freshman week and was Editor-in-Chief my senior year.
Did you go to grad school? If so, where? Was it immediately after you left Truman or did you wait? Why?
Ha, no. I was ready to jump into the workforce.
What was your first job after graduation?
My first job out of college was as a staff writer at a family of B2B (business-to-business) veterinary magazines. I started the Monday after I graduated.
What work do you do/What are you doing now?
After a year and a half at the veterinary magazines, I realized I wanted to stay in Kansas City and I didn’t feel like there were many opportunities in journalism. I looked for other writing jobs and I landed at a tech startup. For the last two-and-a-half years, I’ve been a project manager/business analyst/product owner (we don’t care much about titles). To put it simply, I’d say my job is to define what project our software engineering team is going to work on and then follow that project through the development cycle.
What I love about my job is that I wear many different hats. No two days look the same. I’m collaborating with sales, design, accounting, marketing, and developers all the time. Without my experience running the Index, I never would have realized (albeit much later) that this is what I love doing. I still use skills I learned running the Index every day at my job.
How has your Liberal Arts/COMM education helped you?
I took an accounting class as one of my general credits (I can’t even remember the title of the class now). The product I primarily work on is a POS/CRM software, so that introductory accounting class that I thought I would never use, is the foundation for a good chunk of what I work on.
Which class did you dislike at the time you took it, but now you’re grateful you took it?
COMM 382: Communication Theory. I absolutely hated it at the time. The material was so far out of my comfort zone that instead of studying, I wanted to just shut down. Nothing clicked. But it was a class I had to pass if I wanted to graduate. It forced me figure out how to wrap my head around the content. This happens all the time now. I’m working in the technical field without a technical background.
What was your greatest accomplishment at Truman?
I had Dr. Yaquinto for COMM 349: News Reporting and Writing. Going into our first assignment, she said something along the lines of, “Don’t be upset when I give you 1000 edits on your first article. No one gets it right the first time. Even the most experienced writers see a ton of red on their paper.” A week or so later, she came into class with our graded assignments and told the class there was one perfect assignment – the first in all her years teaching the course. It was mine. I’m not sure if that was really true. But it spoke highly of all the great mentors I had at the Index over the years.
Why is Truman a good place for a student to study?
You’re surrounded by incredibly smart and motivated people. There’s nothing like it. I was really spoiled by it and very naive going into my first job thinking everyone was that driven and intelligent. I promise, they aren’t. I’m so lucky to have been working at a job for 4 years where it’s the same caliber of peers as at Truman.
Andrea (left) with friends from the Index (2012)
What would you say a COMM student should absolutely do while at Truman?
Work for a media outlet. You can’t learn anything in the classroom that prepares you for life like working on a real product and driving it to be more successful than it was when you joined.
What advice would you give someone who wants to go into the same line of work as you?
Do it. Technology is an ever-growing field. Find a start-up and be there while they turn into a real company. Then you can have the perks of a company that makes money (high salary, great benefits), but also the perks of a start-up (ping pong, barista).
What do you miss most about campus/Kirksville?
How cheap rent was. My mortgage is 6 times what my rent was there.
If you could come back to Truman and teach a class for a semester, what would be its title and what would it be about?
Just one? That’s hard. How about “Bridging the Advertising Revenue Gap?” It would be about ideas on how media outlets can sustain revenue using advertising sources other than their website. For example, by offering management of Google PPC campaigns as an advertising package.