Student Branding Achievement: Undergraduate, Spring 2012

I taught courses in personal branding and social business this semester to 32 undergraduate and 30 MBA students at The University of Nevada, Reno. At the height of the course, students were required to blog three times per week and tweet three times per day, five days per week. We produced a mountain of content.

Students were also required to create a 3-5 minute video that communicated the essence of their personal brand to post to the “about me” page of their blog. I gave them very little direction and almost no training. I simply encouraged them to create something they would be proud to put their name on. When I’ve done this in the past, a few students have produced stellar videos (e.g. Caitlin Durkin and Kendra Wilson), but most of the work was not very impressive.

This semester was different. The majority of my 62 students produced work they should be proud of, and a number of them produced some extremely impressive videos. They gave themselves permission to be excellent, and they blew me away with the quality of their effort and results. I’m going to list below the best of the best of undergraduate class, with a hyperlink to each video. If you take the time to click on a few of the links and watch some of these videos, I think you too will be impressed with my students. I’ll list the best of my MBA class in a separate post.

Here are the names and blog titles of some of the best undergraduate videos:

Renee Haynie: Helping Yourself by Helping Others

Kali Whipple: A Simple Guide to Healthy Living

Jasper Jacobs: Atmosphere Dive Apparel

Jesse Capps: Championship Power Poker

Teryn Yopps: We the Liberated

Kevyn Holden: Cooking for Pleasure

Blayne Osborn: A Look at Nevada Politics

Lesley Pastell: Recruit to Hire

Liz Provasi: Cultural Connections

David Bozsik: The Numismatic Enthusiast

Harvey West, III: Rural & Volunteer Fire Service 101

Clark Macario: Drinking & Dining Made Easy

The two best videos in my undergraduate class were done by Mark Omohundro and Kati Nelson. The videos were so impressive I’ve posted them below:

What do you think? Please share your thoughts in the comment section below!

About the Author: Bret L. Simmons