My name is Nick Holle and I am a senior advertising and psychology major at the University of Nebraska. I plan to graduate in May 2012 with these two degrees and with two minors, philosophy and English. As far as Journalism and Mass Communication (JMC) students go, I have had a rather unique education during my time at the University. My undergraduate years have been very enjoyable, primarily because I was able to study a variety of topics. I feel that by taking a diverse range of classes and loading my semester schedules full (averaging 19 credit hours), I not only will be better prepared for my future, but also was exposed to different opinions, interesting teachers, and a lot of fun opportunities.

My JMC path is different again in where it leads me after this year: I currently plan to enroll in law school next year, with the hope of eventually practicing law. While I am still uncertain about which field I hope to practice in, I have always enjoyed the amateur study of law and am ready to take it to a more intense level. Prior to graduation, I will also be completing an Honor’s Thesis with Professor John Bender, examining the development of net neutrality laws. I hope to eventually post my thesis work online here, but it will be another few months before this project is ready for any level of publication.

So why study advertising (or psychology, or philosophy, or English) if planning to go to law school? Well, believe it or not, law schools encourage diverse undergraduate studies, for several reasons. First, having people who think differently in law school classrooms allows for interesting and critical discussion. Second, learning in different majors teaches different skills: for instance, psychology is all about researching a problem and analyzing prior research. Philosophy majors often become experts at logical construction, and a background in this subject helps one make sound arguments. English majors write. And read. A lot… (apparently writing and reading are a big deal in law school!?). So how about advertising? Well, to me, it makes perfect sense in priming the individual for law. Advertising is at its heart a problem-solving profession. How does the client convince consumers to buy their product? What PR spin can cast the company in a better light. How does this brand gain the trust of investors? Et cetera.

I also think that a possible synthesis of law and advertising would be enjoyable. Whether this means going to school to defend copyrights or trademarks of creatives, or studying how to prosecute dangerous or negative advertisements, I don’t know. I do know, however, that advertising has become an important part of my life so far, and I hope and expect it to remain with me for many years to come.

I have a variety of work compiled here for review, enjoyment, education, whatever your goal may be. Many of the creative executions I have are actually several pieces of a larger campaign. Some were made for class, others for different reasons. As for writing samples, I do not have many advertising pieces in particular; to compensate, I have included a dozen or so papers on various topics ranging from human memory to a review of baseball’s great Ty Cobb. Feel free to look through any that might be interesting to you! Click here to go to the work page.