After growing up on the southern coast of Georgia, I ventured up to Virginia to go to undergrad. I had no idea what I wanted to do, so similar to most undergrads without direction I took classes on everything. I dabbled in environmental science and Middle Eastern studies before finally settling on a major in Art History with a minor in Middle Eastern studies. I had had a silent love affair with Art History since taking an AP Art History course in high school; silent primarily because my parents would mention phrases like “not practical,” “no jobs,” and “not useful” every time I mentioned it. Despite their concerns, I was optimistic I would be able to get a job within the art field. Unfortunately, my optimism was forced to meet a harsher reality when the financial collapse of 2008 occurred the year before I was set to graduate. Not only were the jobs in the field of Art History scarce, but all jobs were scarce.
Like most things go, a bit of luck and a connection landed me an interview at the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton my senior year of college—the spring of 2009. I literally had no idea what this firm did or who they were, but I studied their mission statement and ongoing projects like any eager yet largely unqualified college student looking for their first job. After somehow getting through the interview process, I was hired onto the Global Security team. The government consulting firm was interested in my previous studies of the Middle East and Arabic language classes, not my knowledge of the history of art and architecture. Shocking, I know.
A few months at one project turned into three and half years on three different projects at Booz Allen and one more subsequent year at a boutique consulting firm. I held a lot of positions primarily in support of the Department of Defense. I did policy analysis for the Office for Cyberthreat Analysis, financial terrorism analysis for the Joint Threat Finance Intelligence Office, and strategic communications for the Defense Combatting Terrorism Center. It sounds cool, and to a certain extant it was really amazing. At the end of the day, though, it wasn’t for me. I likely knew this all along, but sometimes it takes years to figure out how to create a new path.
The opportunity to carve out my new path occurred with the convergence of two events. First, after countless searches and many conversations, I finally discovered the incredibly interesting field of Historic Preservation. More in line with my original academic and career ambitions, I knew I wanted to enter the field. Not a fan of student loan debt, I applied to roughly 15 jobs in Washington DC that were loosely related to Historic Preservation. After receiving very few responses and a handful of rejections, I realized I needed a higher degree in order to make myself more qualified for these competitive positions. So, I made the decision to go to grad school. Second, I had met a guy (now my husband) and we both had an itch to travel and experience new places. Knowing that I wanted to start grad school in the fall of 2014, we decided to quit our jobs in September of 2013 and travel for a year. After three months in Argentina, we came back to U.S. and hung out in the mountain town of Asheville, North Carolina, until moving to Oregon over the summer of 2014.
And now I’m in school for Historic Preservation and I feel happier and more confident with this path than I ever thought possible.