Cal State Fullerton alum Kimberly Noriega’s new job puts her court-side during NBA games and has given her “pinch me” moments like meeting players and shooting her own photos of Steph Curry in action.
As someone who grew up playing basketball and is passionate about sports, Noriega ’25 (B.A. business administration-marketing) knew she wanted to pursue a career in sports marketing. After attending the College of Marin in Northern California, she transferred to CSUF because of its reputation as a top business school, she said.
Now, as a social media graduate associate for the Orlando Magic, Noriega creates and edits videos, graphics and other content featuring the players, live action from games and team announcements.
The Magic’s graduate associate program offers about two dozen recent graduates on-the-job training and lets them learn about different roles in the organization from pre-season through post-season.
When Noriega first became a Titan, she saw a post about campus dining services seeking a marketing intern. She landed the position and stayed with Titan Eats for nearly a year, during which she helped grow its social media following and increase meal plan sales.
She also spent a semester interning for Titans Athletics, where she developed multimedia content, helped plan projects and events, and assisted with marketing on various platforms. Those internships helped Noriega build skills as well as her resume, she said.
While she was gaining hands-on experience in her internships, Noriega was also picking up critical skills in her academic studies. In classes with marketing lecturer Jake Beniflah, she became more self-assured about speaking up, she said.
“I came out of my shell, started raising my hand and sharing my ideas on creative projects,” she said. “He helped me a lot with my confidence and taught me not to doubt myself when I was going into interviews.”
Noriega “has a competitive spirit, which I saw in our class discussions,” Beniflah shared.
He tells all his students not to let fear of saying the wrong thing hold them back, and he sees that approach as a strength of CSUF’s business program.
The College of Business and Economics teaches business and marketing fundamentals like other schools, Beniflah said, but “our secret sauce is that we empower our students in the classroom, inspire them to be themselves and create the necessary pathways to helping them break into the industry.”
In the future, Noriega hopes to land a gig as a social media coordinator for an NBA team and eventually pursue a role in sports marketing.
Her job with the Magic allows her to watch games and meet players up close, Noriega said. But she’s also learning from new mentors and practicing “a lot of valuable skills that I could take into other career options.”
She loves that she gets to learn from the sales staff, the general manager and other departments within the organization, and also that she can take part in events like the Orlando Magic’s media day, when she met the players, interacted with them and created content from the experience.
“It was a moment where I realized that I got to where I wanted to be and this is the start of the rest of my career.”