HOW TO BECOME AN EVENT PLANNER

Education: Is a degree necessary?
It depends on who you ask. Hollis got her first job halfway through college and opted not to finish her degree. “Before I started my company, I spent a year working full time and interning with event planners on weekends for free to learn the ropes. In this industry I believe it’s all about experience; no school in the world can teach you what to do if the power goes out, catering kitchen catches on fire and you have 100 extra guests.”

Though a bachelor’s degree isn’t a necessity, many larger employers prefer that their employees hold a degree. A handful of schools across the country have developed programs specifically to train event planners, including California State University, San Diego’s Hotel and Tourism Management program, or HTM as students refer to it. The program requires students to take serious business courses—like accounting, calculus and computer information systems—as well as classes like Travel and Tourism Management and Destination Management, on top of completing two internships in the field. Amber, a junior HTM major with an emphasis in Events Planning, hopes that the intensive preparation will allow her to jump right into a higher management position at a large resort. “Some students choose really fun ones, like working for a cruise ship for a summer or at the Disneyland Resort,” says Amber.