Rooney’s brother is an alumnus of St. Cloud State, and Brittany and her mom were helping him with his apartment five days before he started his fall 2014 semester.
“I asked my mom to stop at the admissions office because I had a few questions,” said Rooney. “By the time I left I had applied, been accepted, registered for classes, and found housing.”
Rooney had previously attended two different colleges before settling on St. Cloud State.
“Neither of them had video production programs, or something close to it. I like working with video, so I wanted to be able to incorporate it into my major somehow,” she said. “Here I was allowed to kind of create my own major so that it was something that I really enjoyed.”
Jackie Payne Noetzelman, the previous owner of Dancin’ Off Broadway in Sauk Centre, asked Rooney if she would be willing to do some videography work for the dance recital since Rooney was an administrative assistant for the studio.
Because of her love of videography and leveraging her education from St. Cloud State, Rooney started BR Productions, her video production business, with the help of her parents.
She just graduated in May, but Rooney’s entrepreneurial spirit and skills already had her juggling video productions for nine dance recitals from May 5 to June 17 and starting her new job at The Ordway.
“About a year ago, I saw an internship opportunity for an event coordinator intern at The Ordway, and I applied for it,” said Rooney. “I didn’t get it, but in January they contacted me about an upcoming job opening as their event coordinator.”
The current event coordinator left at the end of April, so the opening was perfectly timed for Rooney with graduation being a week after the job opened up.
“St. Cloud State has definitely unleashed my potential,” Rooney said. “With all the internships that are available, I was able to get hands-on experience that really helped prepare me for my career.”
