Taylor Hasebroock

How did you first hear about Rize, and why did you decide to take a Rize course?

Taylor is a senior at Nebraska Wesleyan in Lincoln, Nebraska, double majoring in social work and communication studies. She first discovered Rize courses while browsing Nebraska Wesleyan's online course database looking for summer classes. After emailing her advisor, she learned that Rize was a partner platform designed to expand course offerings beyond the university’s existing catalog.

She took two Rize courses that summer and hasn’t looked back. Since then, she’s taken even more, including Digital Marketing, Growth Hacking, and Social Media Marketing Brand Awareness and Engagement.

"When I jumped into my first course, the professor was super helpful, always answering her emails whenever I had questions. Same with the Q\&A forum that we have for all the students to respond to. That was also very helpful."

How did you apply your Rize skills outside of the classroom?

Taylor has applied her Rize skills across multiple contexts:

In-person coursework: In her Principles of Advertising class, she's creating a full advertising plan for Rose Cat Coffee Company, a local business in Lincoln. "Word for word, it was like the same assignment and the same principles that I've had in a previous assignment through Rize." Her professor praised it as "so organized, so detailed, above and beyond."

Process and tools: Before starting any project, Taylor uses SMART goals to map out her objectives. She identifies target audiences, brainstorms ideas, and uses ChatGPT (learned through Rize) to refine concepts. She creates content in Canva (learned through a Rize tutorial), sources images from Unsplash, and pulls stock video footage from Pexels.

“It blew my mind how much I’m able to do with a handful of free apps,” she shared.

She’s also learned to match brand colors and tone rather than using her naturally colorful style: "When you're working for brands, you need to stay with their whole tone, their whole voice, so when you're delivering their content and they're posting it on their own, it's recognizable to their audience."

Healthcare access event: During a summer internship, she created bilingual flyers (Spanish and English) for a community event aimed at individuals living in halfway houses who were re-entering society. This was an especially meaningful application of her marketing skills, as a tool for making resources visible and accessible to people who need them most.

The event focused on gathering stories about their Medicaid access and healthcare experiences. She coordinated with multiple supervisors and the halfway house's social media advisor to finalize and distribute the materials.

Serving job: She even applies marketing principles to her serving job, treating each customer as a unique target audience to understand their needs— an approach that has translated into noticeable higher sales.

How did this experience impact your career trajectory?

What surprised Taylor most was how seamlessly her coursework translated into real-world application.

"I was really able to tie so much that I've learned from my Rize courses into my real-life experiences."

Most significantly, it shifted her long-term career vision. While she'd always planned to become a practicing social worker, exposure to scholarship opportunities and her marketing skills opened new possibilities. She's now applying to graduate programs to pursue a mental health practitioner license, with an end-goal of opening her own private practice.

"Once I have my own practice, I’ll be able to use my marketing skills,” she explained. “The digital world is so important, and it's not gonna ever go away, it's only gonna grow more. And the more that I can learn now, the better off I will be later."

What's next for you?

Taylor graduates in May and is currently applying to graduate schools to pursue her mental health practitioner license. Long term, she hopes to open her own private practice where she can combine her social work expertise with the digital marketing skills she's developed through Rize courses.

She's currently juggling 19 credits (3 in-person classes and 2 Rize courses), completing her Rize coursework on weekends, and interning on Fridays and select weekday mornings. She's building a portfolio through her Social Media Marketing course and recently attended a career fair, where she put Rize-taught networking skills into practice.

Taylor’s schedule is full, and every step she’s taking is intentional. Reflecting on her college experience and how it’s shaping her future, she put it simply: “I wouldn’t change it for the world.”