By Sian Wilkerson

Trey O’Shea will get his undergraduate degree in May. Then he gets his “bundergraduate” in June.

O’Shea, who will graduate in May with a degree in mass communications from Virginia Commonwealth University’s Richard T. Robertson School of Media and Culture, is joining an exclusive club: He will spend the next year as one of 12 new Oscar Mayer brand ambassadors, known as “hotdoggers,” who travel the country in the brand’s fleet of iconic, hotdog-shaped Wienermobiles.

Each year, the company welcomes a new cohort of hotdoggers to promote Oscar Mayer by showing up to events, such as the Ukrop’s Monument Avenue 10K in Richmond, and spreading smiles.

“There’s that funny trope of, ‘Oh, I’m going to take a year off and backpack through Europe’ or ‘I’m going to take a year off to find myself,’” O’Shea said. “This is kind of a way to do that but [also] make the parents happy – because there’s stability to it. It’s paid. And it really does align with my career goals.”

With thousands of applicants annually, getting the opportunity to become a hotdogger is rarer than receiving an acceptance from Harvard University. In June, O’Shea will attend Hot Dogger High – a two-week training course to study the history of Oscar Mayer, receive public relations training and learn to drive the Wienermobile – for his “bundergraduate degree.”

“I love meeting people,” he said. “I love talking to people. And what better job to do that than this? … This is such an iconic brand, under the Kraft-Heinz Co. umbrella. And being able to be that voice will really help me in my journey as a copywriter.”

Former hotdogger Derek O’Leary, now an assistant professor in the Robertson School, said that O’Shea was the perfect candidate for the Wienermobile.

“Being a hotdogger requires someone to be personable, a problem-solver and an engaging storyteller. Trey embodies all of these and more,” O’Leary said. “Everyone that meets him leaves with a smile, and you feel like you just met a new friend.”

In the cover letter that helped earn him the coveted spot, O’Shea chronicled a moment in which “misfortunate met fate”: His mom, Beth, got food poisoning from a “subpar hotdog” – clearly not an Oscar Mayer dog, O’Shea notes – prompting a decades-long aversion to the classic American fare.

Despite growing up in a “dogless” household, O’Shea describes himself as a “hotdog enthusiast” whose lunch money financed a covert hotdog habit at the school cafeteria. He even has taken part in a hotdog eating contest – losing, but competing nonetheless.

As an aspiring advertising copywriter, he knew he had to sell himself in the cover letter. “I just wanted them to read it and say, ‘We’ve got to talk to this guy,’” he said.

At VCU, O’Shea has been active in the Ad Club, serving in multiple roles on the executive board. Once his time in the Wienermobile is up, he will begin the master’s program at the VCU Brandcenter.

He said one of the biggest lessons he has learned at VCU is to make his ideas “big and bold.”

“One thing [associate professor Marcel Jennings] told me was that if the idea doesn’t scare you a little, it’s not good enough,” O’Shea said. “Without that, I don’t think I would have been able to write a cover letter that would have been noticed. A lot of schools teach you great soft skills and technical skills … [but] the ad program at VCU really pushes that creative excellence and that large, conceptual thinking.”

If there’s one lesson O’Shea believes can be learned from his story, it’s to take risks.

“I would implore people to explore opportunities that give their life more story and allow [them] to really build perspective,” he said. “At the end of the day, what’s going to make you more hirable is not necessarily another bullet point in your résumé, but having those stories and that perspective that is uniquely yours.

“Maybe it’s trying to drive the Wienermobile, or maybe it’s something else entirely,” O’Shea added. “But this is the time in our lives to really go out and make these stories and live these experiences.”