When Mary Rowe Dill ’26 first stepped onto Miami University’s campus, she had no idea where her career would take her. Like many students, she sampled different classes, explored new interests, and hesitated to lock herself into just one path.

Now, that open-minded curiosity has become her superpower. Dill is the TikTok creator for Evergreen Waffles, a fast-growing food brand that’s winning over Gen Z with its playful, creative content.

Proof that uncertainty can be a launching pad rather than a setback, Dill gradually uncovered her calling by staying open to new experiences and following what sparked her curiosity. Her journey from “undeclared” to content creator shows how exploration, risk-taking, and a willingness to try something unexpected can lead to a dream job.

Mary Rowe Dill

Finding a major — and a direction

Dill entered Miami without a declared major, using her first two years to explore different academic interests. But everything changed when she took a course with Adam Rottinghaus in the Department of Media, Journalism, and Film. There, she discovered Strategic Communication taught in a way that was both intellectually rigorous and directly connected to the real world.

“Dr. Rottinghaus made me realize I could genuinely enjoy what I was learning,” she recalled. “I began noticing his ideas in the real world and thought, OK, maybe this is something I could see myself doing beyond this class. After another course with him, I declared my major in Strategic Communication.”

As she moved through the program and picked up a Digital Marketing minor, Dill dove into audience research, messaging strategy, and analytics — skills that quickly became the backbone of her internships and, eventually, her career. Classes in social media strategy and digital communication pushed her beyond simply “posting content” and toward understanding what makes audiences care, click, and come back.

Translating data into story

From March 2025 to January 2026, Dill completed a social media coordinator internship for Barstool Sports. Moving beyond spreadsheets to track players and fans in real time, she translated her observations into a smarter digital strategy while leading family tours and supporting hospitality on game days, giving her a front-row seat to how live experiences fuel the stories fans later see online.

Dill also ran a Barstool TikTok account, curating user-submitted and original content for more than 100,000 monthly viewers. Supported by her strategic communication coursework, she didn’t just see which posts performed best; she analyzed why they worked, what they revealed about audience motivations, and how they could strengthen the brand’s voice.

“That connection between what we talked about in class and what I was seeing in real-time on TikTok was huge,” Dill explained. “I could look at a trend or a piece of content and think not just ‘this is funny’ but ‘this is on-brand’ or ‘this speaks to our audience in a specific way.’”

Hospitality meets digital strategy

Dill’s next step on her career journey took her into the heart of the restaurant world. From May through August 2025, she worked as a social media marketing intern at Lettuce Entertain You Restaurants, a family-owned group based in Chicago with more than 100 locations and a reputation for warm hospitality and a strong “culture of care.”

“One thing I loved about Lettuce was how genuinely valued and heard I felt,” she said. “I expected busywork, but instead I got to know my team, tap into my creativity, and watch my ideas come to life.”

Dill’s responsibilities at Lettuce were broad and hands-on: she created and planned content for Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook; edited videos and identified emerging trends both behind the scenes and on camera; engaged with the online community to ensure no guest went unanswered; and supported digital marketing by analyzing Meta and Google ad spend. Drawing on her academic background, she turned creative ideas into measurable results, helping Lettuce reach more than 14 million post views, earn 747,000 likes, and grow its follower count from 7,400 to 12,300 by the end of her internship.

“Most of the skills I brought to that internship came from my time at Miami, especially during my sophomore and junior years,” Dill explained. “Those courses gave me the tools to understand audiences, interpret insights, and create content that truly resonated.”

Confidence in the classroom

Returning to Miami after her summer in Chicago, Dill brought with her a new level of confidence and a clearer sense of direction.

“One of the main lessons I took back to Miami was that I was on the right track,” Dill said. “I realized that the courses I took couldn’t truly be appreciated until I was in the real world. I used to think, ‘Oh, social media, that sounds interesting. I’ll take that class.’ But once I was doing it in Chicago, I knew I’d made the right choice.”

Back on campus, Dill threw herself into the coursework that had opened the door to her internships, especially advanced classes in social media strategy, digital storytelling, and analytics. With each project and assignment, she could see the direct line from theory to practice, and that connection sharpened her sense of purpose.

“I went back to Miami, continued with the courses that brought me there, and used that knowledge to go even further in my last year of college,” she said.

For Dill, the College of Arts and Science (CAS) became more than just a place to earn a degree; it was a flexible, interdisciplinary launchpad where she could experiment, refine her interests, and ultimately align her passions with a real-world career path. In CAS’s intellectually curious environment, she moved from uncertainty to clarity — and from the classroom to a fulfilling career.

Creating for a Gen Z audience

Today, Dill is the TikTok creator for Evergreen Waffles, a role that brings together everything she studied and practiced at Miami.

“As Evergreen’s TikTok creator, I develop and edit short-form TikTok content,” she explained. “I focus on trends that fit Evergreen’s voice, but my main job is to introduce Evergreen to a Gen Z audience and make the content feel natural and engaging for that demographic.”

In this role, Dill creates trend-driven content aligned with Evergreen’s brand identity, developing videos that resonate with mom, lifestyle, and fitness audiences and using analytics to understand what performs and why. Her content strategy stems from a key lesson at her Lettuce Entertain You Restaurants internship: let the audience find you.

“I’ve become much more comfortable analyzing insights and understanding which content is performing,” she said. “Instead of forcing content toward a specific group, you create and see who it naturally resonates with. I brought that mindset to Evergreen and have seen strong results. It made me so much more confident in my skills going into this role.”

Looking ahead, Dill sees a long-term future in strategic communication and digital content.

“Every experience has only confirmed that this is what I’m truly passionate about and what I want to be doing for the long-term,” she said. “Each day, it barely feels like work because I’m genuinely excited to be here and to keep learning.”

From an undecided student to a full-time TikTok creator, Dill’s journey shows how Miami’s College of Arts and Science doesn’t just prepare students for a first job; it equips them to build a career fueled by curiosity, adaptability, and a genuine desire to shape the world.