Mandi graduated from Marquette University with a Master's of Arts in Communication. She then proceeded to take the Internet by storm with a #hireme campaign that spanned several social media platforms. Her efforts impressed employers, yielded her 11 interviews in 2 months, and got her hired in 3 months.

She now shares her success story with job seekers at conferences like Milwaukee JobCamp, and through the microsite, Get Social. Get Hired.

In the summer of 2009 Mandi traveled to Cagli, Italy as part of Marquette's Study Abroad program. She studied international journalism and digital storytelling, creating photo, video, and written pieces for the web. Not only did the experience give her the opportunity to learn a new culture and language, it also helped her hone her skills in photography, video editing, and interviewing.

A culmination of over 4 years of planning, The Constant Foreigner is a site dedicated to telling the stories of individuals who have lived, worked, studied, volunteered, and served cross-culturally and those of their families and friends. Using skills in web design, writing, interviewing, social media, interactive multimedia, video, and graphic design the site is a portfolio of all that Mandi learned in the communications and digital storytelling program at Marquette.

In April of 2010, Mandi traveled to New Orleans as the videographer for the 6th Annual International Ombudsman Association (IOA) Conference. The result was three web videos for the IOA covering three themes: Code of Ethics, Membership, and Conference.

In celebration of 100 years of co-education at Marquette University, Mandi's digital storytelling course was tasked with creating a website showcasing stories of accomplished women. Planned in conjunction with a history exhibit by an undergraduate communications course, the class covered topics like sports, alumni, and student life. Her team tackled residential life for women on campus and created an interactive timeline using video and animation. Meant to put the user in the driver's seat of the narrative, this piece tells what campus life was like for women throughout the decades.

A Day for Meta House is the annual fundraising event for Meta House, a Milwaukee-area nonprofit. Utilizing print, web, video, and social media, in 2011 Mandi transformed this gala into a transmedia event that nearly doubled the organization's fundraising goal. Learn more about the project, success, and resultant press coverage here.

In the summer of 2009, Mandi interned with the Oneida Tribe of Indians of Wisconsin as part of the multimedia team. She learned about social media guidelines, how to develop a strategy for an organization's online presence, and how to create interactive web pieces using Adobe Creative Suite. Mandi created an interactive timeline of the tribe's development, researching this history through a variety of internal and external sources and teaching herself Flash along the way. She also worked on a website redesign for the tribe, which showcases how multimedia can be used to share information.