Tracey McCormack runs into her former students almost daily. With more than 30 years of teaching experience at UCLA Extension, the alumni from her classes are everywhere and in prominent positions across the television and entertainment landscape – from a senior vice president of media partnerships to a station manager in Tampa.

“Thousands of people have come through,” said McCormack, who currently works as a vice president of training and development at Fox Television Stations for her day job. “No matter where I go, I meet people who were my students who went on to have great careers.”

As a high school cheerleader growing up in New Jersey, McCormack thought she was destined to attend UCLA and told her parents as much. They laughed it off – could she even find Los Angeles on a map?

“But when it’s January and snowing in New Jersey, and you see images of everyone at the Rose Bowl – wherever that is, that’s where I wanted to be,” she said with a chuckle.

Eventually, logic won out, and McCormack attended a small college in Maryland, staying closer to home on the East Coast to study business and finance. This led to a sales assistant job in New York City in radio advertising.

“I started working in the media business by chance, and low and behold, I’m all of a sudden working for NBC,” she said.

McCormack moved to Los Angeles to further her career. And in 1993, one of her clients who was teaching a course at UCLA Extension needed a substitute teacher and thought she would be a good fit. McCormack was only 25 at the time, but teaching inspired her.

“I was a natural,” McCormack said. And the next year, she stepped into the role full-time and started gaining a reputation. Classes swelled to 70 students.

“The class was getting a lot of attention at the ad agencies and T.V./radio stations – staffers there would say, ‘You have to take this class and we’ll pay for it.’ Nobody had training programs at that time,” McCormack said.

She taught media sales and buying. Over time she focused on media sales.

“Today, fast forward 33 years later and the class is called Fundamentals of Cross Platform Media, because there is video, audio, connected T.V., social media, influencer marketing, search engine marketing, AI, VR – there’s a lot of new content.”

Guest speakers are frequent and come from all corners including TikTok, Fox Sports, Netflix, Fan Duel, the Los Angeles Rams, Los Angeles Dodgers, Meta, Google, Nielsen, NBC and more.

“A lot of the nights I have guest speakers that the students are dying to meet,” she said. “The introductions alone are well worth the price of the class.”

McCormack preaches the gospel of working in media buying and selling.

“Media is one of the coolest businesses you can be in,” she said. “I’ve been to a million great sporting events, it’s incredible and very fun. I saw the pilot for ‘Friends.’ And then I worked on the media placements in those shows. It’s constantly changing. It never gets boring.”

For many years, McCormack said media companies and television stations invested in their employees and sent them to her classes, but those resources have dried up. To support the industry she loves so much, about 10 years ago she was honored with the formation of the Tracey McCormack Scholarship Fund to support students in the Marketing Certificate Program at UCLA Extension.

McCormack said she feels compassion for entry level workers in the industry.

“There are many students this scholarship can help,” she said. “I love UCLA Extension. I’ve seen Extension change people’s lives – myself included. I run into people and they never forget what happened at UCLA Extension and how it helped transform their lives.”

McCormack plans to continue supporting the scholarship well past her retirement. She believes it is vital to make sure students can receive the skills they need to not just survive, but to thrive. She continues to enjoy teaching in an ever-evolving professional landscape. And she particularly enjoys the full circle nature of teaching at UCLA Extension.

“I wanted to come to UCLA as student. I didn’t get into UCLA, but my dad has since reminded me that I have done something at UCLA far beyond my wildest expectations,” McCormack said. “All I wanted to do was go and be a cheerleader at UCLA, and instead I’ve been a teacher there for 33 years, have a scholarship fund in my name that will outlive me and I’m getting to make a difference in student’s lives.”