During your college and early professional years, it’s common to feel that the career decisions made now are indefinite and will affect you in the years to come. While it’s important to prepare yourself to secure post-graduation plans that align with your goals, QUEST alumni themselves show that where you begin your career journey is not the end all be all. I was able to speak with 3 successful alumnae who have undergone career changes recently in order to learn from their journeys.
Mary Smith (Cohort 29)
The first alumna I had the pleasure of speaking with was Mary Smith, a member of Cohort 29 who graduated in Spring 2020 with a Mechanical Engineering degree. While in college, Smith got experience working in industry by interning at Oceaneering for two summers and a winter term. During her first summer with Oceaneering, her role was within Quality Engineering, but she completed her second internship within Mechanical Engineering. When considering post-graduation plans, Smith said that she knew that she “already had an established role at Oceaneering that she could jump back into” and that it would be an awesome first job. Thus, she accepted a full-time position and started as a Mechanical Engineer in July 2020. Unexpectedly, about a year after starting at Oceaneering, Smith’s engineering teacher from her high school approached her about an open teaching position. Smith explained that it was a very tough decision to take the teaching position because she “knew it was a dream job but didn’t want to toss aside a career in industry so early.” One of the deciding factors that went into her decision was that she knew that the school, Archbishop Spalding High School, was a great place to teach and she wasn’t sure if this opportunity would arise again.
She’s found that she really enjoys her teaching position because it incorporates her passion for engineering, while also bringing plenty of human interaction into her day-to-day life. Teaching engineering has shown her her niche of “taking technical content and communicating it in a way that is approachable.” On top of her career teaching, she is also balancing completing classes for her master’s program of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University. Purdue was her first choice program, as it was the highest-ranked and most affordable option of all of the programs she applied for. As for the future, Smith plans to stay at her current teaching job until she finishes her master’s program when she will then re-evaluate her next steps. Smith spoke about how she loves working in education, whether that may be staying in a teaching position or working in curriculum development (a throwback to her days on the QUEST Curriculum Review Committee!).
When I asked Smith what her advice was for QUEST students, she explained that a lot of people in QUEST are more inclined to have a 5 year/10 year plan, but to “not feel like once you’ve made the plan you’ve locked yourself into it and cannot change it.” Especially with COVID-19, she experienced herself that sometimes things might not go according to plan, but big changes like accepting her teaching job have made her very happy.
Elizabeth Gillum (Cohort 28)
The next alumna I spoke with was Elizabeth Gillum (Cohort 28) who graduated in Spring 2019 with a degree in Supply Chain Management and Marketing. Gillum explained that she chose her majors early on in college because she was always really interested in consumer product goods. PepsiCo, particularly, was a top company she was interested in, as she found a connection with the company at networking events. Gillum’s internship with PepsiCo the summer before her senior year was a great experience and solidified her decision to work there. She began working full-time as a Supply Chain Analyst in Columbia, Maryland in July 2019. After about two years at PepsiCo, she began to consider a career change. Gillum explained that “once [she] had felt settled, she started to reflect on what she wanted out of a career.” Because of this, she started searching for jobs within the nonprofit sector and discovered an opening for her current position on LinkedIn. After the application and interviewing process, Gillum began her role as a Program Associate at Lutheran Services in America this past October. Lutheran Services in America is a non-profit focused on health and human services that serves approximately 6 million individuals in the U.S. a year.
While Gillum knew that she “wanted to work at a non-profit in the future, it was a long-term goal, and [she] thought that maybe after 5-7 years she’d work for a non-profit.” Specifically, she felt that Lutheran Services in America (LSA) was a great fit because there wasn’t a specific issue that she wanted to focus her work in the non-profit industry towards, and LSA provides a variety of different services. In her current role, she also recognizes that it was beneficial for her to start and get grounded at a well-established company such as PepsiCo.
Through this career transition, Gillum has learned that “[she] is someone who needs to be fulfilled through her work. It’s really important for [her] to feel that she is making some sort of positive impact in the community.” She expressed that careers are different for everyone and that everyone needs to reflect on what is important to them. Gillum’s advice to the QUEST community (both current students and alumni) is to “never feel that you are stuck.” She explained that if you start out in a career that you realize isn’t a great fit, there is no harm in transitioning out of that role. Additionally, she emphasized that those looking for different opportunities shouldn’t feel limited by their major or previous positions.
Amy Liang (Cohort 24)
Last but not least, I was able to learn from the experiences of alumna Amy Liang (Cohort 24), who graduated in 2017 with a degree in Information Systems and Operations Management & Business Analytics. She began her post-graduation career as a Management Consultant at PwC in their San Francisco office. Liang chose to go into consulting after graduation because she “didn’t have a specific industry she wanted to work in and knew consulting was a good path to explore and understand different options.” Specifically, at PwC, she worked mostly under financial consulting and was staffed at a tech company client, working as a project manager. In spring 2019, Liang began working for KeepTruckin, which is a start-up she discovered when doing competitor research for another company she was interviewing for. Her role as a Product Operations Manager, which she explained as a cross-functional position that dealt with problems encountered as the company size scaled. One of the challenges Liang found when recruiting for positions at start-ups is that “when coming out of consulting, really small companies might not understand what you do,” and those coming into a start-up “need to have evidence of doing a specific job at their previous company.” She emphasized that it is important to know how to present yourself and be aware of misconceptions about what consultants do.
Due to COVID-19 adjustments, in Spring 2020, Liang left KeepTruckin and began her career at Robinhood in product operations. Liang expressed that one of the main reasons she chose to work at Robinhood and why she currently loves her position is mission alignment and the company culture. She really enjoys her coworkers because while they take their work seriously, “people still bring a level of realness and their whole selves to work.” Liang described product operations as a new and growing field within tech, “one that QUESTees are perfect for.” Essentially, her role is making sure that product and engineering are working with operations for various considerations such as financial requirements and edge cases.
One of the adjustments that Liang faced in her role at Robinhood is experiencing imposter syndrome. She explained that in consulting, you are often given a specific problem to solve and it is clear what a deliverable looks like, which is not exactly the case in tech, especially in product operations. Something that has helped her deal with imposter syndrome is grasping a fair understanding of what people expect of you and realizing that while there will always be a list of things you aren’t doing, you can prioritize the items that are most important to the company. Reflecting on how QUEST has helped her, Liang spoke about how “when things get tough, QUEST trained her on how to approach process improvement” such as talking to stakeholders, framing questions, ways to measure opportunity/improvement, and brainstorming.
Speaking to these three alumni showed me how lucky we are to have a community of passionate individuals, with such a wide range of experiences. From industries ranging from education, non-profits, and technology, there will always be an alum willing to share their experiences and advice!