July 23, 2026

by Lauren Ferguson

From a desk with her own nameplate on the 15th floor of the 3rd World Trade Center building, Elisabeth Christman ’27 has been spending the summer researching information for top advertising executives to create pitches for potential clients.

“Every day I wake up and I am literally so grateful that I ended up here and that I am working with the people that I do, because they are fantastic. Everyone is so smart and dedicated and wanting to learn, which is a really cool environment to be in,” said Christman, a Ramapo College of New Jersey marketing major and business analytics minor.

Christman, of Nutley, NJ, is interning as a growth summer associate for WPP Media, one of the largest advertising agencies in the world.

“As a summer associate, I get to see how pitches for major, potential clients are explored and researched. While I can’t go into detail about current pitches I am working on … a previous client won by WPP Media was Wendy’s back in the spring,” Christman explained. “Essentially, I get to sit in on planning meetings, create pitch decks, and research any and all information needed for executives to successfully pitch to companies that we want to work with.”

While gaining a first-person view of how pitches are developed, and the creativity, strategies and decisions behind them, she has also picked up other business skills. She has learned about project management, diligent note taking and speaking up at meetings, she said. And she has gone on coffee chats to “speak with all different types of people of all different ages and in all different positions,” she said.

Elisabeth Christman ’27 is interning in Manhattan for WPP Media, one the largest advertising agencies in the world.

The summer role in Manhattan is a dream come true for Christman, one she made happen through hard work, networking, and staying the course. She spent her junior year at Ramapo focused on obtaining an internship. “I knew I wanted one, and I wasn’t going to stop until I got one,” she said.

By networking with Luannee Hernandez ’26, a fellow Roadrunner in Ramapo’s Alpha Kappa Psi professional business fraternity, she learned about the Advertising Educational Foundation’s (AEF) Marketing and Advertising Education (MADE) Internship Program. The highly-competitive program connects qualified undergraduate students with paid summer internships at Fortune 500 companies, leading agencies, and major media organizations. Last summer, Hernandez was placed in an internship with L’Oreal Paris through the initiative. On Hernandez’s advice, Christman applied to the program, earned a spot, and was placed at WPP Media.

“People always think networking is with the people above you, but it’s also horizontal networking too,” she said.

Christman’s role at WPP Media may be her first “corporate America job,” she said, but she has been honing her marketing skills for years. She joined DECA in high school, simply because she liked her marketing teacher, and ended up going to states and becoming the first student from her high school to make it to nationals, she said. A member of Ramapo’s Honors Program, she has worked as a marketing intern for Sodexo, Ramapo’s dining services, and served as a student ambassador for the admissions department. She is also the marketing chair for Alpha Kappa Psi and the past president of the Sigma Sigma Sigma sorority on campus.

She chose to attend Ramapo because “I wanted someplace I could feel at home,” she said. As a twin with three brothers, affordability was also important. “This is definitely a more affordable option for me … merit scholarships and being in the Honors Program helped,” she said. Christman has thrived as a member of Ramapo’s tight-knit, collaborative community, where she has found her experienced professors to be supportive, mentoring and encouraging, she said.

The future is wide open for Christman. Post graduation, she visions herself pursuing marketing in the entertainment industry, a media agency or at a publishing house. But one thing rings true, with her drive and the dynamic education and hands-on opportunities she gained as a Roadrunner, she will go far.

Ramapo College of New Jersey is ranked sixth nationally by SmartAsset in their 2026 America’s Best Value Small Colleges and Universities study. The study examined average cost of attendance (COA), graduation rate, and median earnings of students 10 years post-graduation. Ramapo has the lowest cost of attendance and highest graduation rate of New Jersey institutions on the list, and ranks third nationally for public institutions.