(This summer, SJSU Today hit the road, visiting students and recent grads on the job at summer destinations throughout the Bay Area. Our 2013 Spartans at Work series continues with journalism alumnus Matthew Zane.)

Driving along Highway 87, it’s hard to miss the enormous inflatable character sitting atop a 52,000-square-foot purple building on Woz Way.

That structure is home to Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose, which seeks to inspire creativity, curiosity and life-long learning.

For the last eight years, Matthew Zane, ’07 Journalism, has been helping the museum’s staff think through ways to interact with the region’s multicultural community.

“The experiences that I have had here have been invaluable. One of the main things that I’ve learned is how to multitask and how to keep calm and just drive toward my goals,” he said.

As a communications specialist, Zane works on cross-departmental internal and external communications, participates in outreach, and maintains the museum’s online social media presence.

In his current role, Zane strategizes how to communicate key initiatives such as Children’s Discovery Museum’s commitment to combat childhood obesity through healthy eating and active living. Zane is also helping build the museum’s online community.

“I’m learning how to give our audience and my colleagues’ valuable and useful content for the museum’s news feeds and other social media channels,” he said.

Zane started by working at the museum’s youth program summer camp. He was later hired to work full time running a volunteer program and supervising museum floor staff.

As an SJSU student, Zane learned how to interact with the public and be comfortable communicating with people.

“Looking back on all of the resources and the wealth of ideas and support that SJSU had for their students is just something that really impresses me. I could tell that if you put the work in and you were serious about pursuing a career, there where people there that would help to make that happen for you.”