Intent on a career in advertising or marketing, Will Kessenich '11 already knows what it's like to work on a big account for one of the world's largest creative agencies. Kessenich spent the summer serving DDB Chicago as an account manager for McDonald's Corporation.

He directed DDB's contact with McDonald's, represented the client's needs, and acted as a liaison between McDonald's and the agency production and art departments. He even worked with a McDonald's executive chef on the marketing potential for products in development. "It was an amazing opportunity," Kessenich said. "I shadowed for awhile, but as the summer progressed the agency gave me the reins and told me to have at it. I moved into a full-time account manager's role."

The opportunity beckoned two years ago when Kessenich met Wendy Cook '81, McDonald's vice president of menu management, on campus as part of the Burton D. Morgan Foundation Lectureship Series. Cook helped connect him to an internship a year ago in the U.S. marketing department at McDonald's, which then led to his hiring at DDB this summer. "Working on the client side one summer and the agency side the next, I feel like I have received a well-rounded exposure to the advertising process that will help me decide what area I want to go into after I graduate," Kessenich said.

The diversity of tasks at DDB helped Kessenich realize the value of a liberal arts education at Kenyon. "One day I would be giving a presentation about some research I did on McDonald's competitors, and the next day I would be providing background information on gospel music artists for an event McDonald's was promoting." Sociology classes, such as Human Society and Problems, Politics and Policy: The Political Construction of Social Problems and Their Solutions, helped the economics major understand human behavior and group dynamics.

He's taken that knowledge and the experience from challenging internships to order a career to go.