Please give a brief background on yourself and your career:
Born and raised in the suburbs of Kansas City, I am a huge barbecue and baseball fan. I find it noteworthy to mention this because it’s the only thing about me that has stayed true over the years.
I entered Wellesley in the fall of 2003 as a biology major on the pre-med track. It took almost 2 full years of undergraduate study for me to finally accept the fact that chemistry and calculus were not my friends. At that point, I switched to a major in psychology. After graduating from Wellesley in 2007, I returned home to develop an anti-poverty initiative called Young Achievers at the YMCA of Greater Kansas City as an AmeriCorps VISTA member. My experiences at the YMCA included grant writing, curriculum development, and marketing, solidifying my interest in non-profit management and working with people.
After a year at the YMCA, I moved to St. Louis, Missouri to attend graduate school at Washington University in St. Louis, where I received my Master of Social Work in 2010. My concentration in graduate school was macro-level social work, with an emphasis in program evaluation. Since then, I have worked as a program evaluator at the largest hospital system in the state of Missouri, evaluating the effectiveness of school-based health education programs.
The more I’ve learned and practiced the concepts of program evaluation, the more I’ve become interested in the idea of data visualization, or visually organizing data in a way that quickly and easily shows patterns, trends, and correlations. My interest in making data accessible and easy to understand for the everyday consumer led me back to school in 2014, where I earned a certificate in digital media and graphic design.
These days I am still evaluating the effectiveness of school-based health education programs, but have also started my own freelance graphic design business specializing in creating infographics and other data visualizations.
How has your career changed since you originally envisioned it at Wellesley?
I have to laugh when I think back to my days at Wellesley and what I thought my career would look like. I came in to Wellesley thinking I would follow in the footsteps of the late great Steve Irwin, Crocodile Hunter. I was interested in animal conservation and wanted to dedicate my life to being a zookeeper. After a few biology and anthropology courses at Wellesley, I became interested in pathology and forensics and thought I would become a Crime Scene Investigator like on TV. And then finally, after a few psychology courses at Wellesley, I decided I liked the idea of applied psychology and wanted to become a social worker. And, as they say, the rest was history.
How has Wellesley contributed to your career?
The biggest way that Wellesley has contributed to my career is that it taught me to be intellectually curious, to take risks, to believe in myself, and to create the opportunities I want.
What is a typical work day or week like for you?
What I like about my job is that it is really hard to say what a typical day or week looks like. If it’s during the school year, I tend to work on more data cleaning and analysis projects. Summer has more downtime, so I tend to work on more curriculum-related and website projects. Sprinkled in between all of that, I teach at a university once a week, participate in a number of coalitions and professional organizations that each have their own meetings and conferences, and I take as many professional development classes, workshops, and seminars as possible.
What piece of advice would you offer students looking to get into your area of interest and expertise?
As cliché as it sounds, sometimes it really is about who you know, not what you know. Network with as many people as you can. Be willing to take risks, but also learn to say no. Never stop learning, creating, or trying your hand at something new.
What do you wish you had known as a student?
I wish I had known that it’s okay not to know what you want to do with your life. I also wish I had known that it’s okay to change your mind. I’m almost 10 years out of Wellesley and some days I still don’t know what I want to do with my life. But that’s really okay. Just be sure to enjoy the journey.
If you could come back and take one class at Wellesley what would it be?
If I could do it all over again, I would retake a class called Downtown New York City’s Music Scene. It was an upper-level course in the Music department where I got to listen to the Ramones and the Velvet Underground and call it homework. My final paper for the course was on the godmother of punk, Patti Smith. I wish I had realized back then just how cool this class really was.