Choosing a university is one of the most difficult decisions a young person will make. For pre-med students, a top quality educational experience needs to combine with other elements, like practicum and research opportunities, to be considered truly well-rounded.
McMaster’s Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine is renowned for educational and research excellence. With campuses in Waterloo, Niagara and Downtown Hamilton, virtually every type of educational and practicum opportunity is possible. This creates a marketing challenge all its own – with so many options, how do you adequately showcase the program to potential students? In such a hugely competitive post-secondary market, how do universities stand out?
At Double Barrel, we are grateful to have a long history with McMaster. We were thrilled when the outreach department at the DeGroote School of Medicine got in touch. We love having the opportunity to showcase what makes programs unique – and this was a particularly interesting challenge.
After multiple creative discussions with the team leads from each region, we honed in on one simple fact: the experiences that McMaster’s medical program offers are as unique as the students themselves. Each undergraduate can mix and match the program options to best suit them, their particular specialization and career goals. This is where we took our inspiration.
Through individual student stories, we highlighted specific regions, campuses and the practicum opportunities that exist within. Our three students – Steven Huynh (Hamilton), Kaylyn Merrifield (Waterloo) and Barbara Tatham (Niagara) were followed from home to classroom to work placements, while their personal narratives describe why they feel particularly drawn to the medical profession. The resulting video vignettes are personal, emotive and uniquely entertaining, highlighting just how varied your experience can be through the Michael G. DeGroote School.
Says Program Coordinator Lea Matulovic, “Roz, Lee and the entire Double Barrel Studios team made working on this dynamic project a great experience. They were extremely organized and provided us with the flexibility required to capture a vast variety of individuals and locations. Their professional, yet fun approach made for easy collaboration and their expertise; creativity; and willingness to understand and meet their client’s needs resulted in a finished product that exceeded our expectations!”
Thanks to the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine for bringing us on board!
Living Wage Hamilton is an organization that advocates to employers and helps to raise awareness about the importance of providing a living wage; a wage that provides enough for employees to cover basic every-day expenses. The challenge for Living Wage Hamilton is to offset the perceived financial challenge for businesses with the benefits that they will derive from adopting a living wage policy.
To help businesses better understand those benefits, Living Wage Hamilton contracted Double Barrel Studios to produce a short series of videos highlighting local Living Wage employers.
The videos feature Living Wage Hamilton employers such as Cake & Loaf Bakery, The Mustard Seed Co-op & provided us with an opportunity to contribute our own experience at Double Barrel Studios as a living wage employer.
For creative professions, wages often fall below the living wage threshold and that sometimes means finding additional work outside of the field to make ends meet. For Double Barrel Studios offering a living wage allows for our busy team of directors, producers, editors and writers to dedicate 100% of their efforts into providing the best experience when we work with our clients.
We already recognized the importance of providing a Living Wage & just like the other employers that we interviewed we also feel that it plays a vital role in the long term success of a company. It was a new experience for us having to be the interviewee’s but we were honoured to have the chance to speak about something that we feel is an important cause for our great city!
Visit https://livingwagehamilton.ca/ & join the conversation!
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