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Being a student in Grady College was one of the best experiences of my life. I remember the day I found out I was being admitted to the school. It was a day filled with joy and acknowledgment of a lot of hard work I had put in after experiencing some struggles to adjust to college life and academia during my freshman year.

I am always asking ‘what can we understand better to make communication more effective, more ethical, and how can we help organizations learn from their experience in order to not just protect their reputation, but more importantly, protect the health and safety of their people?’

More than any single piece of advice, I remember learning . . . that what seemed impossible was always, in fact, achievable.

This summer, I traveled to Sydney, Australia, to cover the FIFA 2023 Women’s World Cup, which was a life-changing experience. It was an unreal feeling to step out onto the pitch with 75,000 fans cheering around me. I’d never done such high-profile work before, and seeing my photos circulate around the world on the Associated Press wire was a much greater reach than any of my previous work.

In the past year, my biggest professional accomplishment was definitely being selected as a recipient of the Atlanta Ad Club Student Scholarship. My biggest personal accomplishment is being more confident in my knowledge and what I create. I used to be really scared to share the projects I work on and photos that I take, but not anymore — so growth!

I chose Entertainment and Media Studies because I have an extremely wide range of interests, but the one thing that ties them all together is that I want to capture my interests on camera. I believe that the accessibility and quality of our media have one of the biggest impacts on our society today. I want to be a part of the people making genuine content.

Grady cemented a hustler, deadline-driven foundation in me that has carried me through every chapter of my career, from news to public relations to marketing. It has become my secret weapon, and it started the basement of Grady.

My students can expect honesty, accountability and transparency. The biggest lesson they will go away with is that they are uniquely made and that the world that we live in may not always understand where you come from and what you want to do, but you should always embrace who you are and be able to listen and tell the stories of others.

My initial objective is to create an environment where students can discover their voice,” said Mattison. “My second objective is to train students to refine that voice and then use it to tell stories that matter to them, independent of genre or subject matter.