
I Launched a Marketing Career After 4 Years of Trying to Figure it All Out was originally published on The Muse, a great place to research companies and careers. Click here to search for great jobs and companies near you.
If You Could Go Back and Switch Your College Major, Would You?
No. I think an interdisciplinary approach to education is highly important and widely undervalued. Do I use my background in medicine, health, and society every day? No, but it exposed me to unique cultures and perspectives I would’ve been otherwise unaware of.
And part of what makes me successful as a digital marketer is my ability to understand variable perspectives and create content geared to any audience—my psychology degree was essential to developing that skill as well. In fact, psychology has proven to be a relevant knowledge base when evaluating how to create a marketing plan that connects with both leads and clients.
Do You Think You’ll Stay on This Path for the Foreseeable Future?
I think I’ve found my professional home within digital marketing. Participating in this apprenticeship has given me the opportunity to carve out my niche while learning about new strategies and methods.
I also want to take the momentum I gained by actively learning and networking throughout program into my new role as the marketing director at SocialPath Solutions. Being proactive with my career growth has been a huge takeaway from the program, and feels very natural to me now.
How Have Your Post-College Experiences Helped Shape You in Terms of Where You Are on Your Current Path?
In hindsight, graduate school wasn’t the right choice for me, but without making that mistake I probably wouldn’t have found marketing in the way I did—if at all. I think the wrong turns and scenic routes along the way all led me to this point.
Just because you explore different industries doesn’t mean you walk away without having gained applicable skills or experiences for something else. There are many useful parallels between previous positions that boosted my skill set when I entered marketing.
If There’s One Piece of Career Advice You Could Give to Others Struggling to Figure it Out, What Would it Be?
Let go of what you think you “should” do. I followed “should” for a long time—I “should” go to graduate school, I “should” go into a medical field, I “should” just ignore that I’m unhappy— none of that matters.
What really matters is what brings you joy. Once I broke free of what people said I should be and what I thought others wanted to me to be, I was able to follow my gut and find a career that felt right for me.
Think about what matters most to you—for me, that was creativity, autonomy, and flexibility. I’m sure there are other career paths that would fit me just as well, but marketing hit home when I felt the most lost in my career. I was lucky to have stumbled upon it, but I had built up experiences in other industries that helped me break into a new industry and hit the ground running. So, don’t feel like the search for your ideal career is a waste of time. It might just be what sets you apart.