#1 Where did it all start?
I have never heard about MAIP.
That was until my roommate, Adriana, told me about the program when she got accepted last year in 2019. This was pre-COVID when she got accepted (February 2020). She was excited to be accepted by MAIP and how she was supposed to go to Boston for her agency. Our other roommate, Zio, and I were excited for her. We told her how we were going to visit her in Boston because we had a reason to go.
However, you know how that ends. She didn’t end up going because of COVID and the MAIP program was turned virtual.
During the summer of 2020, she was doing MAIP and I was chilling at the apartment with her. I would overhear all these virtual talks she was having. How advertising agencies were making advances towards their equity, diversity, and inclusion at their companies. Or discussions with the MAIP cohort class talking about their day-to-day life at their advertising agency virtually, being a first-gen college student trying to make their family proud, and struggles of being a person of color navigating through a white-dominant field.
I would hear these zoom calls. I was fascinated and felt very empowered hearing everyone who talked. Talks about facing imposter syndrome, feeling like the only POC at your agency, or just navigating down your own path. I aligned with everyone’s values or views on how I wanted to do the same thing but within the film industry.
I have to preface, Adriana was a PR major and I was an RTF major (basically a film major). I have never thought about doing MAIP when she was doing it. I didn’t think I would fit into the advertising world. I just couldn’t picture myself.
It wasn’t until later that year in November, Adriana encouraged me to try MAIP to get an internship next year. I just shook my head and shrugged my shoulders saying, “I don’t know if it’s my thing.” But something in the back of my head told me otherwise when those words left my mouth.
When the deadline to apply for MAIP 2021 was reaching around the corner. Adriana insisted on MAIP again as they had a discipline in my similar of expertise to film. “Integrated Production,” a discipline that was basically the role of a producer on a film, but for commercials. I decided to give it a shot.
Something new, something different, and something out of my comfort zone.
I knew producing work was hard work as a film student. It’s a miracle any film gets made, but I’ve seen several friends do producing work. A part of me was scared to fail as producing is hard work but I knew I had to take a leap. If anything, I thought, maybe this was an opportunity to learn and fail while getting mentored by professionals in the field. I thought, maybe I can bring it back to show my friends and people in my circle of filmmaking.
I decided to take that shot. I am grateful to be accepted by an agency and the amount of growth I am going to give and take away because of MAIP.
I knew what I was in for with MAIP after hearing Adriana talk about her experience. I knew I found a community and space within the advertising world. And that I wasn’t alone on my journey into the real world.
My MAIP 2021 video application
