Jessica St. Jean was looking for a career change when she discovered the Palm Beach Code School’s Digital Marketing Program
At age twenty-five, Jessica St. Jean is adept at social media. Like many millennials, she has all the key social media accounts—Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Snap Chat—and posts to them regularly. Still, St. Jean wanted to go deeper than just posting. She wanted to master social and digital media marketing and use those skills in her work as a community organizer. She explains:
“I have a bachelor’s in political science and African American studies from FSU (Florida State University). Since graduating college I’d been doing grassroots political organizing and door-to-door canvassing for NextGen America, the nation’s largest organization dedicated to youth voting.
“When the pandemic hit, all of that halted. We couldn’t go door-to-door anymore because of the quarantine so I began exploring other jobs. I started thinking about social media marketing because I realized very quickly that social media was becoming the greatest tool connecting people in our communities. I wanted to see how I could use it to connect with voters. “
St. Jean understood the social media platforms, and she’d used design tools like Canva and Adobe Photoshop, but she wanted to learn about audience targeting, optimizing analytics, and the fundamentals of digital marketing. She turned to CareerSource Palm Beach County, a state-chartered nonprofit that specializes in helping job seekers find employment through career assessments, job skills training, and general employment assistance.
Assigned to a CareerSource counselor, St. Jean explained her interest. The counselor recommended the social media marketing specialist program at the Palm Beach Code School (PBCS). She informed St. Jean that CareerSource would pay for the course as part of their training program if she qualified for their scholarship.
“I didn’t even know there were opportunities like that out there,” St. Jean says, “so when the counselor brought it up, it was pretty amazing.”
Upon researching the PBCS program, St. Jean learned that it cost $4650, considerably less than similar programs she’d researched. The scholarship possibility made PBCS the ideal option for her, so she applied and was accepted into the program’s next session. (The Palm Beach Code School offers several payment options, including tuition financing, for those who do not enter the program using the CareerSource scholarship.)
St. Jean started the course in March of 2021 and graduated four months later. Because of COVID, she did the course virtually, meeting with her instructor and classmates twice a week via Google Meets for three and a half hours each time. At the course’s conclusion, she had earned a certificate as a social media marketing specialist.
Today she works as a support associate with a political tech company, a job she landed within weeks of graduating. Her primary focus is customer relationship management (CRM): helping clients—progressive campaigns and organizations—use digital tools for peer-to-peer texting, phone banking, and grassroots organizing.
Many of the CRM tools she uses are ones she learned at the Code School. Using the design guidelines learned from the same class she is also assisting the company’s help center with the design and rebranding of their guides.
She says it’s an added bonus that her company has a product and design department and does a lot of in-house design work. She’s optimistic about future opportunities to use more of the skills that she learned at the PBCS.
Until then, however, she’s not waiting to use the skills she acquired at the Code School. Instead, she’s starting a side-hustle doing social media design and content creation for small businesses. She’s done a branding redesign for a local law firm, including creating a new logo, and some in-house design content for future marketing. She’s also designed event flyers, and other social media marketing content for several local businesses.
An unexpected outcome was that the course gave her the confidence to consider becoming an entrepreneur. Initially planning to become an attorney like her father, she plans to return to school to get a master’s degree in business, with a concentration in entrepreneurship and marketing. Her vision is to create an agency that serves nonprofits and grassroots organizations by producing their social media content and managing their marketing.
“When I joined the class,” St. Jean says, “I was more interested in the social media management aspect: content planning; learning how to build and manage the profiles for different organizations. I got that, but I also got a refresher in Photoshop. I learned how to use analytics tools so I could better understand how to create a sponsored post and measure if it was being effective with an audience. I learned about color coding and image formatting; about keeping things consistent with the design; all those things that I see the design department at my job doing. That was really beneficial.”
She concludes: “Before the class, even though I used social media, there were so many aspects I was unaware of. The class gave me that understanding that you wouldn’t be able to get if you didn’t have a job doing those things. On a more personal note, it gave me confidence. Prior to the course it was harder to get my foot in the door without having that experience. So definitely it’s helped me.” Writer/Interview: Max Smith
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