Introducing Lauren Cordero, Talk Freelance To Me’s Very First Intern

Are you ready to meet our very first intern? 

In this episode of The Talk Freelance To Me Podcast, host Ashley Cisneros Mejia introduces Lauren Cordero, an ambitious freshman at the University of Central Florida who is already pursuing opportunities to gain professional experience. Lauren shares her background and passion for communication through various mediums like writing, photography and design. She also offers her perspective on the evolving state of journalism, social media and content as a student entering these fields. Tune in to learn more about Lauren and how she plans to apply her creativity and skills to serve our Talk Freelance To Me community!

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• More about our new intern Lauren Cordero
• About a Gen-Z student’s perspective on the current state of journalism, social media and content as she learns about these fields in 2024
• More takeaways from Ashley and Lauren’s experience at PodFest Expo

ABOUT LAUREN
Lauren Cordero is our very first intern here at Talk Freelance To Me! A current undergraduate student at the University of Central Florida here in Orlando, Lauren is charting a path toward a dynamic career in advertising and public relations. A native of Miami, Florida, Lauren has a passion for travel, cultural exploration, and fashion. She actively participates in the Quotes and Fashion Societies at UCF, and embraces every opportunity with enthusiasm and dedication. Connect with Lauren on LinkedIn.

Full show notes here.

Transcript

Ashley Mejia: 0:00

I'm welcome to talk freelance to me, the podcast for women freelance writers, 1099 independent contractors and solopreneurs. I'm your host, Ashley Cisneros. me here. For more than 20 years I've worked as a journalist and freelance writer. Today as a mom of three kids. I'm passionate about helping other women leverage the freedom that freelance offers. On top freelance to me, we're all about the business of freelancing. If you want to learn how to monetize your talents, make money on your own terms, and design a flexible work life that actually works for you. This show is for you. Before we get started, don't forget to follow us on your favorite social media platforms. Review us on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen. And don't forget to share this episode with a friend. Visit our website at talk freelance to me.com for free resources, join our email list to be the first to know about our latest offers. Thanks for tuning in and let's get into the episode. Hello and welcome everyone to another episode of the talk freelance me podcast. I'm your host Ashley Cece, notice me here and today I am super excited to introduce to you the very first intern that we've ever had at Tuck freelance to me, the amazing Lauren Cordero Lauren, how are you today?

Lauren Cordero: 1:22

I am great. How are you?

Ashley Mejia: 1:24

I am so excited. I'm so good. I'm so excited to introduce you to our community. And in this conversation to just learn more about you and to talk about what amazing things we have in store for our community. So, freelance fam I always introduce our guests with a little bit of information from their bio, so I'll do that now. Lauren Cordero is our very first intern here at Tuck freelance to me. I current earns a undergraduate student at the University of Central Florida in Orlando. Lauren is charting a path toward a dynamic career in advertising and public relations. A native of Miami, Florida, Lauren has a passion for travel, cultural exploration and fashion. She actively participates in the quotes and fashion societies at UCF, and embraces every opportunity with enthusiasm and dedication. Lauren, you rock. I'm so glad that you're here. That was your formal bio. Do you want to introduce yourself to the community? Tell us more about yourself? Sure.

Lauren Cordero: 2:28

Yeah. So I'm currently a freshman at the University of Central Florida. I was born in Puerto Rico, but I grew up in Miami, so very knee deep and culture over there, which I think is kind of where I found my love for that. And I moved here to Orlando last year. And it's been the biggest change of my life so far, but I think it's going to be great.

Ashley Mejia: 2:50

I am so excited for you. I'm so happy for you for being like at this chapter in your life. Like it's just there's so much it's just all potential. It's all, you know, future looking, and just how exciting. Thank you. I just gotta give you your props to because you really impressed me in all of your materials in all of our interactions. So far. I'm excited. The fact that you are a freshman and you're already doing an internship, I feel like deserves a round of applause. I don't know for anybody listening. You know, if you guys did internships when you were in college, I did some but they were later. I think it was my junior year, my freshman year, but the fact that you're, you're looking for these opportunities to get your professional expertise. So early in your college career is very cool. So I'm excited for you. So can you tell me a little bit? Why did you choose advertising as your major at UCF?

Lauren Cordero: 3:48

Well, as someone who's always loved being involved, definitely through high school, I found that I thrived the most in group projects, group activities, taking in those extracurricular activities. I really loved being in a position, especially a leadership position in those things where I can lead a group towards a shared goal. Within those activities. I eventually began finding my passions for writing for photography, any creative project anywhere where I can express that creativity and that outlet within literature and just all forms of art. I found that I loved it. So when looking at the majors for UCF, I was definitely interested in either advertising journalism, something within the School of Communications, I thought that was my calling. But I think the deciding factor for me was definitely being in the social media program at my high school and drama Academy. The social media program is run by the amazing Miss Alvarez. She's great. She's so talented, and she really instilled in me and all her students, just the power have creativity and communication and how important it is. I've always been an ambitious student. And within that she really always supported me. And she always encouraged me to try different things if I was ever interested in them. So being a part of that program really enabled me to kind of narrow down on what I wanted to do. And I really found that through advertising, I can express my passion for writing, but also maintain that creative eye and apply that in designs and things like that.

Ashley Mejia: 5:34

I love it. I love it. I love your background, too. I know when you were talking with me, you know about the internship, you were sharing that you had competed in the Florida Scholastic Press Association, which I did way too long ago, which is very cool. So you definitely have like the writing skills. I mean, that's so cool. And then I loved that you had this graphic design interest, too, in communicating visually, which as we can see, for anyone listening, you know, your, whatever your service that you're offering, that, that need to communicate what you do visually, like on Instagram, or you making Facebook information for your clients, all of that is so necessary. And I love Lauren, that you can do both that you can communicate through words, and then also through graphics. I think that's really cool. Thank

Lauren Cordero: 6:29

you. Yeah, I definitely love using the different mediums, whether it's photography, or writing, specifically, I think there's such a power in what's said, and what's not said. And really enticing an audience through a picture is so powerful to me, or being able to connect with people through my words, is something I've always loved, which is why I've always been drawn to literature reading and things like that. That's super cool.

Ashley Mejia: 6:56

I love it. So we talked about you done, you did the social media program at your school, you also did the Florida Scholastic Press Association. How do you perceive the state of journalism, content? Social media? Like what are you noticing? As a student that studying all of this? How do you see it in terms of like your own professional aspirations, like what you plan to do after college? How would you describe it,

Lauren Cordero: 7:28

being a student, and really narrowing down the focus on what I've loved? Learning about it was really interesting. Because as a student, you're not only shown the positives, you're also shown the negatives of what it is that you want of your intended field. And it was really eye opening. Because as social media is changing, as that change precedes, it can be very overwhelming. My perception of social media definitely changed, because I realized how misleading it can be. While it does have its amazing benefits as far as communication and connection, there's also a lot of misinformation out there. And it's really difficult to tell what's real and what's not. As far as journalism, I also got a chance to learn about the state of it, its evolution, and then how it's changed. It was very interesting to see how a lot of journalists at this day and age, a lot of them want to get the job done, which is so different from what I was taught journalism to be. I've always loved being able to put your own perspective on a story and have it reach millions of people. I think now, with so many false claims and biased opinions, it's really easy to narrow down on one side of social media, when it's so diverse. And getting that first hand experience learning about it has been so interesting to me. I think the state of journalism and advertising and social media for what it is today. It's very, I don't even know if I can put a word on it because there's so many different things that come to mind. It's great for the ways that we've always mentioned for its connection for bringing people together, but at the same time, it's very easy to cross that fine line and have it be a dangerous thing. For someone going into the industry, I am definitely taking account of that. And really focusing on my goals and just what I want to get out of this industry and having that be my path forward. Rather than noticing everything everyone else is doing when it comes to social media and getting the job done as a writer journalism will always be important to me and always love it. And I've always loved seeing its evolution. I only hope that people similar to us that love writing that love the integrity of journalism, I hope that it just maintains the same for years to come.

Ashley Mejia: 10:17

I love that. They love that so much. And it's so interesting to hear you, you in your classes, learning about that evolution, because for me, you know, when I was in college, I remember I took like a very basic intro to HTML class. And we had to make, you know, these little websites for ourselves. It's like portfolio. And I remember, I think that that was my senior year in 2004. That's when Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook. And I know Facebook was not the first social media. There were several before like, I was on MySpace. Like when I grew up. I remember going after school and middle school and high school and being in the AOL chat rooms. That was kind of my first use of the Internet back then, you know, we had like these AOL CDs, like you would put a CD ROM in there. It was dial up, like the internet was just then it's toddlerhood if it's it started in like the 90s. So then by the time I was in school, it was like in its toddlerhood and it's adolescent. And I remember when Facebook came out, at that point, it was only available to college students. And it wasn't even available to all college students they had they rolled it out. I think it was the Ivy League schools first and then it was other schools. And then you had to have like, you would have to have your UCF email, you wouldn't it wouldn't just be open to everybody. Your personal Yeah, like just Gmail, like just a person. So it was just for college. And it was the friend who told me about that. And they were like, Hey, have you heard of this new app called Facebook? Or this wasn't even called an app? Because there was no iPhones yet? It was, have you heard of this website? Right? And I was like, what can you do on this? And he was like, Oh, well, like it has pictures and profiles of your classmates. I'm like, this is never gonna last. Like, I don't want to know these people. I already see these people in class. And you know, they're letting me down on the group projects. And it was so funny to hear to think about how I was like, this is never gonna last. And now. I am one of those people. On Facebook, I have, yeah, I would have if you would have told me back then when I was 19, that this would be a thing. And that means that I would actually have a business because of what social media created and made possible, I would have never, I would have never believed you understood what you've been meant. Like 2006 is when YouTube came out. So I was already out of school, then Instagram, I think was oh six or seven. I can't remember. There was no tick tock tick tock didn't come yet. Snapchat didn't come yet. Even LinkedIn, LinkedIn, I can't remember. I think it was around that same time. But there was this renaissance, or this creation, this boom of social media. And at that point, like there are whole jobs that are out there for you now, that when I was in college, when there was no social media manager job, like that Job didn't exist, there is no like, it's just It boggles my mind. And also, when we look about, like, all of the ripple effects, right, so these, like you said, that connection, and that community, I love how you mentioned those two things, as things that the social media has allowed us to have, right. But then, knowing when I was 19, and hearing about Facebook, understanding that social media could overthrow governments, that social media could help people, you know, in other countries, right themselves, the power, the power, or even an us in our country, the misinformation, the whole like bots, and fake interference from other countries coming and what that effect would be on elections in our country and on the political space in our country, in even like how we associate or don't associate the unity of our country, and how social media played a role like the how we would have whole conversations on what is fact. And that for me again, when I was 19, and I was learning about communications this way that you're learning about communications now. Again, I would have been like what a fact is a fact is a fact. Not this whole term, fake news. Alternative Facts. What's really like the fact that we're even talking about that now it's when you talk about the good thing means that social media has made possible the fact that women like me and you, we go on Amazon, and we buy a mic, we can talk to the world, right? That doesn't exist for our grandmothers, and you came before us. But the trade off is with the same technology that can allow women to be business owners and create businesses from their home is the same technology that can also topple governments, like, yeah, that's a crazy trade off, isn't it? Yes,

Lauren Cordero: 15:30

it really is. It's incredible to see the power that's been given to social media for both the good and the bad. Social media can be used as a tool for growth for businesses, for women who don't have the flexibility to be able to work in an office and want have this creative aspiration and want to make a business out of it. It's amazing how that could be used as a tool and used to generate an income for you for your family. It's also at the same time incredible how it can overthrow a government and how if enough people are passionate about the same person, or the same topic or the same idea, it can really be an uprising, a social uprising, it can cause protests, like it's been leveraged so heavily. Yeah, for the good and for the bad. So that's why I kind of mentioned it's a little scary, sometimes digital age. That's why I hope people use the tools to their advantage and effectively and you know, within good reason, not let it be so consuming. It's

Ashley Mejia: 16:45

so interesting, even today. So I just finished a political campaign, we're going to have an episode about political communications coming up about things that I've learned, but even just right now, and we live in Florida. So our legislative session is happening right here right now while recording. And one of the bills that I think just passed was to limit social media use from anybody, I think it's younger than 16. Right. And it's funny, because when we were just talking, I mentioned that when I was in middle school, me and my cousin would race home after school, we were latchkey kids, our parents were working, you know, to provide for us. So we would go on aol.com. And then, you know, it was chat rooms. So people would put a forward slash s forward slash L. A. S l. Mal was an acronym for age, sex location.

Lauren Cordero: 17:38

Oh, wow.

Ashley Mejia: 17:39

Talk about dangerous because, you know, 12, we were 13. We were whatever. And so we would be like, we're age, whatever, we're girls, and we're in Florida, you know, business being, and we would maybe lie about our age to be older than we were cooler than we were. And now, you know, there was no guardrails, right, because it was it was the wild wild west of the internet. Fast forward to now, there's legislation like there's countries, I think Montana outlawed tick tock because the Chinese government owning it, there's been, you know, Mark Zuckerberg has had to go and testify in front of Congress in Washington, DC, because of how Facebook the role it played in the elections. And then now, like, I have a nine year old, I have a six year old and a four year old. And you know, of course, they're I think they're too young for social media. But now the government is telling parents, no, it's not legal. Like we don't really even care what you feel for your own kids. You're not allowed in the state of Florida, to for your kids to have social media. And I'm not saying I'm not I'm not critiquing whether a young child should be on social media. But it's so interesting, how it's far it's come in just 20 years, like the applications in the ripple effects of this technology, right, how it plays into business, how it played into journalism, its impact on politics, all of it. It's kind of like to sit and to think about it and reflect on it. It's, it's a lot. It is a lot and even just advertising like my kids. We pay for their apps. So we pay for Disney plus, and they're on Netflix for kids and all of these things. So they're not even used to watching ads or hearing ads, because they're not from our younger generations like me, you know, we had to watch the commercials and wait for one episode of a show. We'd have to wait a whole other industry to come on like TGIF we used to wait every Friday for this series of shows that would show every Friday night and it was like our routines and we used to wait a whole week to watch family matters to see what was gonna happen. And there was no like binging you know, like even my kids, they believed compass is dangerous. They believe commercials so much, because they don't have the context of watching commercials enough to understand that a company is paying to have this message. Right that it's not gospel truth like my kids like MMA, or those napkins the quicker picker uppers are those bouncy or not bouncy if you want to sponsor the show. Dollar right here.

Lauren Cordero: 20:25

But yeah, but I was like what

Ashley Mejia: 20:27

it my little son's like, Mommy, we got to get chewy.com for the cats, the cats need chewy.com They'll deliver the cat food right to her house. And I'm like, What are you saying? Oh, because they had they had real TV. And it was their first they don't watch commercials. They don't know what commercials are. So they're absorbing it. And they're like, well, the TV said to do that quicker picker, upper bound tea towels are the best. So that's the kind of money to buy. And I'm like, Oh my God, you little kids. You have no idea. But the world you know, yeah, it was just crazy. It's

Lauren Cordero: 21:01

crazy. It is and the way that they're being introduced to it. Now there's so many younger kids on iPads. And you know, at the dinner table when you're in a restaurant. Yeah, which personally I didn't grow up with that. I mean, we had growing up like we had iPads. But I wasn't really introduced to any social media or any technology like that until I entered Middle School. Because I was switching to a bigger school. And where I went to school, it was a middle school and a high school all in the same buildings. Wow. And it was like four or five different buildings. So we were, we were all kind of mixed together. So that's kind of when I was introduced to social media, seeing how early kids are introduced to it now and seeing kids on the app like 1011 12 on Tik Tok and seeing the videos, it's really surprising to me seeing the difference on how I was brought up and how I was growing up, I would never have any form of technology at the table. Like my mom was very adamant on having it be our family time. If anything, we could watch TV watch, like something we're all watching together. But it's really interesting to see how kids are being introduced to it now at such a young age, but how they're so susceptible to things like advertising. And things like social media that they see that they obviously don't know, is fake or may not have the best intentions. They don't know better than to question it. Oh, my God.

Ashley Mejia: 22:29

So I just had to have a conversation with my daughter about about news even about, like, I think because of what we're seeing the trade off of all this technology and how people have used it for propaganda for misinformation. I feel like there needs to be a class in school about how to critique how to critically look at a piece of information and detect if it's factual or not. And based on the source, like I had to have a conversation with my daughter about how to determine if what she's reading is news, or opinion, or looking at websites and say, looking at the address to see if it's a.gov versus you know.edu versus calm. And then thinking about okay, well who benefits by this information? Who's paying for this information if this information is true, or if it's presented as true, and accept that as fact, who benefits by that? If there's somebody that benefits, maybe we need to look at, like, what is who's saying this information deeper, looking deeper. It's true. My daughter even I mean, she's, she doesn't even use social media. She's still young, and I want to keep her she's begging for a phone. She's nine years old. She's in fourth grade. And she's like, all my friends have a phone like okay, well, you're not gonna have a phone. Sorry. And she even there's like this whole thing that I'm seeing on social media about really young girls like 10 Lebbon into skincare, and they're going to Sephora and Ulta. All right, yes. Yeah, she came into my bathroom. I had two bottles of this face wash. I can't even tell you because again, I'm, I just buy what's on sale. And it was some kind of like, facewash and she's like, Oh, I liked the Spacewatch. Can I have the one that's pretty much empty. And it had higher? Higher Lonneke acids. Yeah, I'm you know how to send her on acid that this is I'm 41 and I can't tell you about the skincare stuff and I really need to be careful with the skincare stuff in she's like, Yeah, Mommy, I need to take this. Can I have this in my shower? And I'm like, yeah, and then I'm thinking, you're nine years old, like you don't hire long ago.

Lauren Cordero: 24:40

I've had first hand experience with the 10 and 11 year olds at Sephora. Really? Yes, I went, I was with my mom. And I had gone in because for Christmas. I had gotten a gift card. So I was like, okay, you know, I was and I was working right next to the Sephora. So I was like okay, I'll go in really quick, just grab something, I wasn't sure what I was gonna grab. But nevertheless, and I went in, and there were so many 10 and 11 year olds, and they're all going after the same brands, which, actually, I saw an article about it. I don't know if it's true or not, but they were one of the skincare brands had published a statement saying that children under the age of 14 weren't allowed to get certain products anymore, because there were girls using really intense products that me being 18. I've tried, and they've been way too intense for me, and I put them down and they're using them at 10 or 11 years old when they don't have any, like, they don't have any acne, they don't have things to be using them for. This is crazy. Yes, it's crazy. But I think it's, it's definitely just another ripple effect of social media. In the algorithm, at least for Tik Tok, a lot of popular videos are get ready with me's. And when girls are getting ready in their early 20s, that may look a bit younger, using those products or using that skincare, which is great for them. But then when you have the younger girls watching them, they want to embody the person they see on the screen, they want to have their same skin. So they go and they search for the same products. It's really understandable in the sense that they don't know better. Yeah, and how social media has affected that. But at the same time, like seeing that from an outside perspective, or maybe from like an older mindset. Kind of it's, it's really surprising. It

Ashley Mejia: 26:41

is it's incredible. I you know, it's this constant battle with my daughter to just encourage her just enjoy being young. I mean, I know I understand, because I remember being young, and one wanting to be older, wanting to be older is so bad, because you can do so much more. And I just tried to tell her look, I promise you, you don't want to be doing you're doing whatever you're doing work. This kind of stinks. I'd rather be playing with my Barbies. You know them working all the time. But I love this conversation. Lauren, it's so, so cool. I did want to touch really quick on an experience that we had together. On pod fest Expo. It's a podcasting conference. Listeners, you may have heard me talk about it, because I went to it last year. Lauren and I got an opportunity to go. It was I think last week it was it's only been a couple of days. So Lauren, can you share with our audience, maybe three takeaways from your experience at pod fest?

Lauren Cordero: 27:37

Yeah, of course, there was so much good advice at pod fest for someone who's just diving into the industry now and getting acquainted with how podcasts work and all the things that go into it. There was a lot of meaningful information that came out of it. I think the first and biggest thing I learned was the importance of authenticity, and being vulnerable with your audience and incorporating that into your storytelling. Because as an audience member, as a listener, when listeners really get to hear who you are, as a person, aside from whatever it is you're talking about. It evokes an emotional connection and emotional appeal, that they can just bond to so much more versus just rehearsed content. That was definitely one of the biggest things was encouraging authenticity, and whoever you are, as a person, having that translate into the content you're putting out was one of the biggest takeaways I got. I'd say the second one is establishing your why why are you a podcast? Or why are you creating this type of content? Why did you start podcasting, establishing your why and having that communicated to your audience, saying, Hey, I'm Lauren Cordero, and I'm making this podcast on this, because I want you guys to benefit from it. And I think I am a credible source, I think I can help you guys. Having that established and in the forefront of your mind always when coming into the podcast space was another thing a lot of mentors touched on that I found really interesting. If I had to choose one more, I think it would be building relationships and meaningful connections with the people that you interact with, whether it's co workers, even your competition, people who are in the same area and workspaces you building meaningful relationships with them and collaborating with them. Not really looking at them as an opponent, rather as a collaborator, someone who is trying to do the same thing you're doing, developing a meaningful relationship with them. And also with your audience getting more engagement online is a directory of how your audience feels with you and your content. And what you're putting out the kind of person or creator you are, if you're building those meaningful relationships with both your audience and the people you work around, I think that overall was one of the bigger topics covered as well. That

Ashley Mejia: 30:23

is so good. I love all of what you said, I especially love the part about collaboration, and connecting with people. Because I think that that's so true, I have so many experiences. Once I had a marketing agency, some people will know from the community, I had to actually. And I remember, by starting it with a business partner, the first one and 2012. And I remembered we had our heads down for many years. And we're just working delivering for our clients working, delivering growing so on. And it wasn't until later when we would go to these like networking events, or we would go to more like industry conferences, like we had a little bit more time to because we were out of that startup mode, we would hear about all of these other agencies that were very similar to us that we're doing the same amount of work, some of them were even started around the same time that we were, had started. And it would boggle my mind. Because I would say oh my gosh, there's look at all of us. We are all working and busy and happy and thriving. And we didn't even know about each other. And look, we're not limiting each other, there was enough for all of us, we're all shining, we didn't even know that each other existed. Because we're all there's enough business for us. And I remember feeling like there's gonna there's more business, the world is expansive, and abundant. And there will never be a lack of, of work or people that need our services need our help. So I just I love that. I love that that you mentioned that very cool, we're going to be in basically implementing a couple of the things that you talked about, we're gonna be doing some more things like Instagram lives, some more just live offerings, where our community, our listeners can talk to us about things that we're seeing in the industry, trends, best practices, and so on. So having more of that connection, I love that you brought that out, because that's something that is a goal, I think, for us for this next season of talk freelance to me. So I'm so excited that you're here, Laura, and I'm so excited to grow this new chapter together with you. Is there anything else that you want to share with our listeners about your journey about what you're learning, or your goals?

Lauren Cordero: 32:46

I think just emphasizing the importance of culture and communication and how that plays into anyone's role if they're creating content, or if they're writing for someone who creates content, I grew up noticing the significance of communication, and how it plays such an important role in everyday life. So I think to anyone who's listening, that's creating content writing, if you can take a step back and kind of like reevaluate everything that you're putting out into the world, and see how it aligns with you and how it's benefiting your audience by doing that, and really making sure whatever you're putting out is meaningful, and positive and is really more of a shining light, rather than something that brings people down. I think looking at that is the best way to grow not only as a creator, but just as a person as well. Being able to communicate with so many people at a time is so important. And it's so amazing that we get to call this a job that I get to call this an internship. So I think just being able to do that and taking a step back looking at everything from a different perspective, maybe because it gets so hectic sometimes is the best thing I can kind of end this off with if I can encourage anyone to do anything. It's just to take a step back reevaluate and focus on all the good and the positivity that you can put out into the world being in the space.

Ashley Mejia: 34:27

Love that. Thank you so much, Lauren, I appreciate you being on the crew on the team and participating in this podcast together. So look out for more from us talk freelance to me, we appreciate you guys. And with that we've come to the end of another episode please make sure you hit subscribe and give me a five star review on Apple check out the show notes and grab my free niches get rich as freelance writing worksheet to brainstorm the best niches for your writing business. Until next time, this is Ashley C. snaps me here. Don't forget y'all get this one precious life. Don't constrain yourself to a box that you are never meant to fit in. It is your right to profit from your own creative gifts. Our music was composed by Donna Rafael of world instrumentals talk freelance to me it's a product of Fenix Creative Studios.