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Franchesca Soliman

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ABOUT ME

hello! my name is franchesca (or fran for short) and i'm an aspiring media and communications strategist currently studying a master's degree in strategic communications.i love the strategic side of building marketing campaigns, from the research behind ideas to finding tactics and pinpointed strategies within areas such as SEO and Paid Media that engage and convert digital users.i can be easily identified by my constantly changing hair colours and dark tattoos, and as an aspiring strategist, i hope to break the mold of the perception of marketing, and create meaningful projects.this portfolio is still new, so a lot of sites are still in progress. i hope this site will continue to grow as i learn more about digital and strategic campaign building through my degree and independent study.

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this blog (updated every weekend during semester periods) is for me to write about my journey during my master's degree in conjunction with previous job hunting, working and life in general, defining what i've learnt, what challenges i'm facing, and what accomplishments i've achieved.

this blog will only be active during semesters. i will not be updating during breaks in-between as i want to only share my academic progress, not my personal life. if anything interesting happens, it will be on my linkedin

may 23rd 2026

My first semester is done! What a rollercoaster...Delving back into studying after working full-time for a year was definitely an insane shift, especially with the amount of job-hunting I did. I held myself with so much confidence and ego that because I was undertaking my Master's degree, it would make me 'stand out' from other recent graduates. Of course, I was heavily humbled in that regard. Doing my Master's degree or having experience in full-time administration didn't give me any upper edge, and this being my first proper time in the job market, it was an insane wake-up call to how much I needed to learn about the real world. There's a very specific mix of humility, ego, confidence and delusion to stay consistent both in and out of studying. While yes, there's no harm in bed-rotting every now and then, being unemployed made me feel like such a bum, which then messed up my confidence, which then made me want to curl up and do nothing. Repeat cycle until I'm forced to get up. Like I said last week, I need to be able to rely on myself to be consistent and show up for myself physically and mentally, even when there's no motivation. It's something that I will continue to aim for as I unwind from my first semester.Another update, I ended up finding a job! It's a part-time role at a media agency that is admin-based. It honestly works out in my favour because I've learnt that academic knowledge only gets me so far, hence I have time to expose myself to the inner workings of the communications and PR industry without getting new work thrown at me. It genuinely feels like a boulder has been lifted off my shoulders. It's a role that's in the city and works with my schedule. It's pretty funny because this is the first face-to-face interview I've had during this whole job-hunting experience, which honestly is ridiculous to me. Additionally, this role wasn't actually publicly posted, which means that in regard to this whole experience, it really was just about expanding connections and reaching out to people. Sometimes I disregard the importance of connections in this industry, but after this experience I realise how damn important it is now. On top of that, one of my group assessments got invited to actually pitch to our client! That was absolutely insane to me, and I'm so grateful for the opportunity to do so. This is my first client pitch ever, and even though it's still within a university setting, it's still amazing experience to have.Overall, it's been a great week. Had a few mental hiccups along the way, but I'm going to work hard over the next few weeks to be able to garner that consistency. I'm super excited for the future opportunities I have ahead of me! I will see you all next semester!

may 16th 2026

These assessments have been so mentally taxing, which I wasn't expecting just because I'm focused solely on university and not working. I'm still in the process of job hunting and it's taught me a lot about standing out, and getting out of my shell to initiate talking to people. I've always been a very shy person and I can only hold conversations if someone else starts it. I only have one essay left, which is amazing because it's purely research-based. In regard to my strategy campaign assessments, I'm super happy with how they turned out. I'll check if I'm allowed to utilise them in my portfolio just because two of them are group assessments and I don't want to take credit for the hard work my teammates did.In regard to job hunting... O_OIt's a tough world out there, I'm competing with freshly graduated people, people wanting to change industries, and everyone in between. I'm still trying to determine how to stand out in an industry that expects senior-level knowledge for minimum wage. I don't think I've ever had to face a mental challenge like this before, but after a much needed heart-2-heart with my boyfriend, I've learnt that at the end of the day, I have to rely on solely myself to be able to persevere. Yes, my boyfriend is super supportive and I know that I can rely on him when I need to, but I need to learn how to get through mental challenges like this by myself. When I do get a job and challenges arise, I won't be able to rely on my boyfriend or rely on coworkers to solve the problem for me, it has to be from me.As the first semester of university comes to a close, I've regained so much knowledge about the communications industry and process. During this break I'm going to grind out my portfolio, job hunting, maybe some creative side projects if I have time. I'm not sure what the future holds for me yet, but I'm going to do my best to make everyone around me proud.

may 9th 2026

Whoops late entry :PI've been reaching out to a lot of old friends and whatnot that have been working in the media and comms industry, and I've got some really cool meetups planned! In regard to the role I really wanted, they ended up rejecting me because my Masters would interfere. It really sucks because it feels like I'm in a constant loop of hope and hopelessness. Speaking of workplace hiring, I'm genuinely curious as to why HR employees post fake job openings on job boards. I know it's to look at the scope of the market right now, but I feel like it's pretty self-explanatory that it's really bad... I don't think you need to crush the hopes and dreams of desperate unemployed people.I've been so focused on studies because next week is crunch time for assessments. I got three presentations and three rationales due. Then afterwards, it's going to a hell of a grind to get my portfolio stuff fixed up. I legitimately do not know what to put in there since I don't even know what my interests are, but I'll do my best to do a lot of research different areas of media and communications (though I've already concluded that SEO isn't really for me). I think based on my disinterest in SEO, I can assume that copywriting might not be for me either, but again I'll do research and delve into that and we shall see how we go!

may 2nd 2026

It's been quite busy this week with the peak assessment period on the horizon. I had a lot of social activities over the weekend, hence I've had to speedrun most of my assessments, and also why this entry is going to be shorter than the last two.In regard to my job-hunting, I'm (knock on wood) really hoping that this one role I applied to approves me for the next round. I really admire the work they do and I think I would be a great asset to their team. Then again, we'll see what they think of me, especially with my already hectic schedule (pls like me :3). I am still applying to jobs but a lot are ghosting me, which yes is normal, but it's a bit debilitating.University is going okay, a lot of group assessments which is super annoying but at least I can test and improve my patience (and it's really being tested with some people...). Why do some people just love not doing their portions of group assignments? I don't understand the mentality behind it. While yes, it's frustrating to do, at the end of the day it's less work for an assessment first off, and secondly your reputation with a lecturer / subject coordinator can just disappear within minutes. Especially since a lot of my group assessments require rationales, it's so easy to just call out someone directly and say, "This person did nothing!! Slime them >:D." I know it's something I'll potentially encounter in the work force, but I'm going to hope it's unlikely.

april 25th 2026

This week has honestly been quite mentally challenging. I'm learning how to be comfortable being alone, not because any insane break-up happened (in fact I am in a very loving relationship) but because my dependancy is a bit too much and I've realised that it's gotten to a point where I'm relying on other people so much just to feel happy. This is kind of deep but anyways... I've just been applying to roles and studying this week. There's a little voice in the back of my head that's calling me lazy and a failure for not being able to find a role in my industry, but I'm trying to justify my efforts and drive to continue applying to jobs in conjunction with my Master's degree. I did end up doing a crash course in SEO on SemRush, and it was honestly so interesting. I'm still on the fence on if it's something I want to explore further, but I'll definitely consider it.In regard to progress on my corporate life and what not, I've actually progressed a bit and did an interview last Thursday! However since I'm doing my Masters, they're still consolidating on if my schedule will work with them. Since I'm planning on extending my Masters by a semester in the event I do get this role, I will most likely not get burnout (hopefully...), and all my classes are after 6pm so my work life, study life and personal life shouldn't collide. I'm really really hoping they consider me for this role, but at the end of the day it's in their hands and I've done the best I can.I'm thinking about what other projects I want to do. I've seen people doing fake campaigns to demonstrate their skills, and I might do that once this large assessment block is over, but I don't know what the copyright standards are regarding that? I don't want to get some random email from a large company that wants to sue me for using them for a fake campaign. I might reach out to some friends that have small businesses / personal brands and see if I can learn from them. I've questioned whether I still want to continue my Master's degree, but I want to make up for the lack of work I did in my Bachelors, and I genuinely love the people I've worked with so far (and also I need to flex on my Asian aunties that said media isn't a real degree :P).

april 18th 2026

It's been quite a long time since I've documented anything in regard to my personal life, so I'm hoping that I can discipline myself enough to update this weekly. I'm still in the process of job-hunting since the commencement of my Master's degree, and it's honestly quite debilitating. I'm staying positive that an opportunity will come to me eventually, but for the time-being I will be doing my best to utilise my resources to improve my skills in digital marketing and media. I might start some courses on SemRush to improve my knowledge in SEO and SEM. Additionally, I have some assessments and personal projects coming up that I can utilise for my portfolio, which I'm honestly so excited to get stuck into, especially since one of the briefs is actually from a real client rather than hypothetical briefs only created for the purposes of university assessments. Though I only have verbal pitches, I'm sure I can turn them into strategy reports once I get feedback.Honestly I'm so pissed off at my younger self for treating university as just 'something else I had to do'. Now that I've decided to further pursue my education, I've realised that younger me slacked SO HARD, which is now biting me in the butt. To be fair, I wasn't even sure if I wanted to do communications as a career because I enrolled in that course because some (now ex) friends of mine were doing the same course, and they practically ruined my first year of university (though I'm grateful for the life experience that gave me). I know I'm just 21 and I have a lot of time to figure everything out, but I want to get stuck into the corporate marketing world so I can garner as much experience as possible, and expand my network.Speaking of networking, how does one do that? I've been reaching out to a lot of people I used to intern with and just reaching out to whoever I can, and I've been getting a lot of advice on the marketing industry (especially in the state of the current job market), but I genuinely don't know how to reach out to people other than connecting with them on LinkedIn and hoping that they accept my message requests. I'm sure that with time, I'll be less awkward and I'll find different mediums to reach out to more people, but for now I guess the 'connect and pray' method will do.I'll hopefully have a good update for next Saturday, but I have a few meetups planned as well as some fun creative projects planned, so hopefully I can have some fun the rest of the year.

this section is for personal projects and case studies i've worked on in my spare time.DISCLAIMER: i am not affiliated with any of these organisations unless explicitly stated. these works are solely for the purposes of showcasing and practicing my skills in various areas of digital marketing. if any companies would like any affiliated works taken down, please message me on linkedin.

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