The Post Graduate Flail

The focus of the series is the post-grad career shuffle, and as you’ll see, though the fields differ widely, the general path is the same: many of my guest posters found themselves unhappy in their jobs or fields, and decided to do something about it.

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Simona

Hello readers! My name is Simona. I’m 25 years old and I live in St. Petersburg, Florida. Currently, I’m going to school for massage therapy and will be graduating this September. Come fall, I should officially be a Licensed Massage Therapist. (Yay!)

I do maintain a blog, although I don’t write nearly as often as I would like to. My blog is called My Unsolicited Opinions and I would consider it a humor blog. Well, at least I think I’m funny… I’m not so sure about everyone else. Feel free to take a look for yourselves!

What is your educational/career background?

I went to college at the University of Wisconsin- Madison, and graduated in 2009 from the School of Journalism with a BA in Journalism & Mass Communication. After graduation, I moved to Milwaukee and got a job as a Marketing Specialist for a quick service restaurant business and continued working there for over two years. Then, in November of 2011, I made the big move to St. Pete. I packed up my car, took my dog and hit the road. Once here, I enrolled in school again, this time at Cortiva Institute of Massage Therapy (which was just voted the #1 massage therapy school in the country by the way- no big deal.)

What did you initially see yourself doing with your specific degree/major? 

After I graduated from UW, I initially saw myself working at a public relations firm writing press releases and planning/executing promotional events for my clients. I sought to work for a ‘health food’ company like Kellogg’s or Kashi because I wanted to combine my writing and PR skills with my passion for living a healthy lifestyle. However, at the time, the state of the economy wasn’t conducive to landing one’s dream job. Like many other recent grads, I had to apply for hundreds of jobs and go on countless interviews before finally getting hired. I was so thankful to find a job working for a reputable and fairly well known company that I accepted the offer right away. I felt relieved to find something that was semi-close to my initial plan. After all, I was working in the food industry, just not necessarily for a ‘health food’ company. And although I was doing marketing, I still got to help plan and execute some PR events here and there.

What are you working on right now?

Right now I am in my first semester of massage therapy school and working on becoming knowledgeable in my field so I can pass my exam this fall and get my license to practice. Continue reading…

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Julie

My name is Julie and I am a 26-year-old blogger and freelance writer. My blog, Peanut Butter Fingers, follows my life as I try to work out regularly, eat (mostly) healthy and enjoy life as a newlywed with my husband and our crazy dog!

What is your educational/career background?

I graduated cum laude from the University of Central Florida with a degree in advertising and public relations, and a minor in marketing. After college I worked in the public relations and marketing field and realized that my favorite tasks were those that involved writing. I loved creating press releases or typing up brochure or magazine content. Eventually I became a content manager for a large website where writing and editing was my primary focus. I loved it

and during my time with that company, I eventually started my blog to write about things that interested me, since I was writing about pharmaceuticals and side effects of medications all day!

What did you initially see yourself doing with your specific majors?

I thought I would work in the public relations field, hopefully helping to maintain a positive image for a large corporation. Continue reading…

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Clare

Hi! I’m Clare and I’m 24 years old. After working for a shoe company for a year and a half, I JUST decided to quit that job and accept a new position at a small ad agency in Dallas. Along with my full-time job, I am in school at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, and will be a certified holistic health coach in April. I’ve also been blogging  about my favorite meals, exercises, and fun with friends at Fitting It All In for almost a year and a half.

What is your educational/career background?

I graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2010 with degrees in Marketing and Graphic Design. I started work for the shoe company right away, but am excited to use more of my marketing and social media knowledge at my new job with the ad agency.

What did you initially see yourself doing with your specific degree?

I really didn’t know what I wanted to do. I have both an analytical side and a creative side, hence the double major in business and design, but I didn’t know how I wanted to fit the two together. One of the great things about my first job at the shoe company was that it was a rotational program where I got to switch positions each year and try out different roles. But after becoming more involved with social media, I realized I really wanted to focus on marketing and things in that realm. I’m so excited that my clients at the ad agency will give me that opportunity!

As for my health coaching certification, that is a completely separate interest. After recovering from an eating disorder I became very interested in health and nutrition. My blog is a wonderful outlet for that passion, but I decided I wanted more education. I am certified to see clients as a health coach right now, but since I have a full time job I don’t think I’m quite ready to take that on. Right now I am just using the education for personal and blog benefit, and hopefully will be able to do more freelance writing in the future. And who knows, maybe one day my career will be in health and wellness! The way I see it, more education is never a bad thing and can only present opportunities. Continue reading…

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Justine L.

Hi there! I’m Justine. I’m 24 (and a half), and I’m currently the Social Media Specialist for a dinnerware and kitchenware development and marketing company. I’m also the founder and author of the blog Stop Me if You’ve Heard This One, which is pretty much the story of my life (which includes a lot of cooking, decorating, crafting, running, nerdiness, and random stories). I like to think of my blog as the awkward girl’s survival guide to life.

What is your educational/career background?

I went to Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa (holla!) and received a dual degree in magazine journalism and writing.

What did you initially see yourself doing with your specific degree/major?

I’ve known I was going to be a writer my entire life. (I have vivid childhood memories of stapling together construction paper “books” containing stories I’d written about bunnies and puppies and little girls with brown hair and bangs.) After school, my plan was to move to New York and get a fabulous job at a lifestyle magazine, ideally moving up the ranks to become a health or features editor.

What are you working on right now?

I’m currently working full-time in social media promotion, but I’m also working on expanding my blog and, in general, figuring out what I want to do when I grow up. Continue reading…

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Justine

Hi readers! I am Justine Weibel and I am (newly) 25 years old. I am earning my Masters of Art in Interior Design at Harrington College of Design in Chicago, and I hope to be an interior designer in the near future! In the last few months I have kept a blog which shows my progress, experiments, and research on my thesis: take a look athttp://justineweibel.wordpress.com/.  On a semi-personal level, I also blog to keep in touch with family and friends… much of the content overlaps but this blog definitely has a more personal narrative: http://unravelingjustine.blogspot.com/. Embarrassingly I have not blogged in a while. I guess there really isn’t an excuse except for the fact that I just stopped making it a priority… I am hoping to get back on track this final semester at Harrington!

What is your educational background?

I graduated from Edgewood College in Madison, WI in the winter of 2009 with a degree in Communication Studies and a minor in Political Science. As you can see, I am still a recent graduate [from undergrad]. I did not enter the “real world” (with a career) after I graduated because I knew well before I graduated that I really didn’t have a deep career interest in this specific area. While in school I worked in the event office and helped coordinate events on campus. I actually really liked this job, and was sad when I had to leave. In my next life/career change I would definitely consider event planning!

What did you initially see yourself doing with your specific majors? And what made you decide to change direction?

In order to answer this, I need to back-track a little bit. Continue reading…

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Betsy

Hi!  I’m Betsy – one of Harriet’s college friends from Madison, WI.  I’m 26 years old, and I JUST quit (really – just over a week ago) my first job out of college!  I left the world of stem cell research to join the world of teaching.  I will still be doing science, just encouraging/nurturing/trying to prevent lab accidents with high schoolers instead of doing science in a research setting. I am in the preschool stages of my first blog.  It’s called Photofinishes, and as the name suggests it has a photography focus.  Feel free to check me out!

What is your educational/career background?

I have a B.S. in Microbiology and Anthropology from UW-Madison.  I started actually ‘doing’ science when I was a sophomore in college.  Let me be specific: I mean working in a lab, doing actual research, not doing labs for classes (although I did many of those too!).  Those two settings are more different than you could ever imagine!  As an undergrad, I had quite possibly the very best, most nurturing lab to work in, and was allowed a surprising amount of freedom in my experimental design.  I even had the freedom to make mistakes: I like to think that this is how I learned to trouble shoot.  It is amazing how much better the quality of a scientist’s research is if they know what can go wrong, and how to fix things when they go wrong (because they will).  I worked in that lab for about three years, focusing mostly on protein purification and molecular biology.

I graduated, and had to get a real-life, big-person job.  Luckily, this magic lab I worked in during college had provided me with enough connections that I got a job that started right after graduation. I was hired to work as a stem cell researcher in industry (a.k.a not in an academic lab, but a lab where it’s far more business oriented).  [It even sounded fancy, I was upgrading from a Lab Assistant to a Research Specialist.  Wouldn’t that make you all warm and fuzzy inside if you went from being an assistant to a specialist?]

After a few years as a researcher, I decided to get my teaching certification in broad field science and biology while working full time in the lab.  Did the school and work full time thing for a bit, and now here I am, gloriously unemployed and about to start student teaching at the end of this month.

What did you initially see yourself doing with your specific degree/major?

Originally I thought that I would work for a year or two, and then meander back to school. Continue reading…