School of Communication Doctoral Student Sun Young “Sunny” Park collaborated with New York City Michelin-star restaurant, Yingtao, during the Spring 2025 term to teach students in her Principles of Advertising class practical skills that can be applied beyond the classroom.

“Students had the opportunity to directly apply theoretical concepts learned during weekly classes to a practical, real-world setting,” Parks said. “This experiential approach goes beyond merely recording notes; it enables students to genuinely understand and internalize course content.”

Yingtao’s co-owner, Bolun Yao, was Park’s classmate during her Food Studies master’s program at New York University. Park said, “I saw this collaboration as an excellent opportunity for students to leverage Yingtao’s unique brand identity to practice real-world advertising strategies, particularly since New York City offers an exceptional environment for exploring and executing advertising projects.”

Park’s students also found value in this collaboration. Every Friday, Park would pose one significant question related to the week’s class material, which asked students to apply theoretical concepts to create marketing strategies for Yingtao—this was Park’s Friday activity.  On a typical Friday class, Park’s students voted for their favorite marketing plan, and Park would send the winning proposal to Yingtao for their consideration.

“My experience doing the Friday Activity each week has allowed me to put the topics discussed in class into real-world scenarios and actually apply the knowledge I’ve been learning,” said Michael Rubin, one of Park’s students, “Simply writing the terms in my notes doesn’t make them truly click in my mind, but after I apply them to the activities, I better understand the meaning behind the topics we’ve discussed.”

Through this joint participation, Park offered benefits to everyone involved: her students learned practical advertising strategies, Yingtao gained outside marketing insight, and Park fostered a valuable real-world experience.

Check out some of Park’s students’ work for Yingtao below!