BET Chicago #NetworkingAcross

On Friday, April 26th, I had the pleasure of visiting BET's Chicago office, which I didn't even know existed. This was made possible by the amazing staff of Free Spirit Media's Industry Pathways. These events are inspired by Issa Rae's concept of not only networking with those who are in your dream positions, but also with your peers and those who have similar goals in life.

The office is located at Two Prudential Plaza building which is at 180 N Stetson. It's actually the building that's about a block away from iHeartMedia, where I work part time. It's so crazy how things can be right under your nose and you would never even know they're there. We were told to dress business casual to leave a good first impression on the people at BET. There were about 20 of us in attendance, mostly all women of color.

One of the employees there whose name is Crystal Roberts, a sales service supervisor, was an intern at WGCI years ago, way before the merger happened. Echo Robinson, who is my boss at iHeart, interned there as well; come to find out, they grew up as best friends. It's so crazy how small the media industry is. Making you even more aware of how you maneuver in this field.

There were so many jewels dropped during the visit, such as reaching out to people on LinkedIn who work at places you aspire to and finding your similarities. We met different people in the ad sales business, learning about their day to day. We were given presentations on exciting things coming to BET and the backgrounds of the people who work there.

Oscar Grajeda, an account exec for digital sales, told us how his first job out of college was for FOX. We were all so amazed, he never had to work a regular job. I found that so inspiring and I was majorly jealous, coming out of college straight into a major network, amazing! William Dyson, an account exec in ad sales, got his job after being an intern with the Louis Carr Foundation. He has been with BET for 11 years.

This visit was such a motivator for me and I'm so glad that I took a half day off work for it.