From the Classroom to Comms: My Career Pivot Story

Me at The Alhambra in Granada, Spring 2021

Deciding to live abroad was one of the Top 5 decisions I’ve made in my life. But while living as a teacher in the land of sangría, siesta, and sobremesa afforded me an easy, comfortable living, spending those 40-some odd days in lockdown made me realize I didn’t want to work in a classroom for the rest of my natural life.

O.K., let’s rewind the timeline a bit.

It was the spring of 2014, and I was about to graduate from college (Go Deacs!). I knew I didn’t want to jump head first into the office grind like most of my friends–but to be honest, I didn’t know what I wanted to do for a living. I did know that I wanted to explore and see more of the world at large, so I applied to quite a few postgraduate teaching and fellowship programs. As Providence would have it, one option panned out, so come September of that year, I packed up my life and moved to Spain to teach English; I would remain there for seven years.

While not without its challenges (re: passive aggressive office culture and some difficult students), I rolled with the punches and eventually came to excel at what I did. Plus, I had an eclectic, revolving door of friends and acquaintances from all over the world, and the work-life balance was unmatched (did I mention siesta?). I was content.

And then, I became bored.

When the pandemic hit and outside was closed for everybody, lockdown afforded me a lot of time to reflect; It was at this time I realized that I didn’t want to spend the rest of my professional life in a classroom setting, but I still wanted to do something that tapped into my creative reservoirs like teaching did.

Then it struck me: Maybe my skills with language, and my ability to teach and communicate with others, could be a perfect fit for marketing.

Between my sophomore and junior years of college, I completed a course for liberal arts majors who wanted a peek into the five major pillars of the business world: BEM, finance, accounting, marketing, and strategy, with the latter two being my favorites by far.

To that end, I dedicated the summer of 2020 to teaching myself the fundamentals of digital marketing (shout out Google and Hubspot Academy). I was able to parlay the knowledge I gleaned from those courses into a variety of internships in different facets of the comms industry, including social media and public relations. Fast forward to late 2022, and I got hired at a PR agency, was laid off less than a year later, and joined the RJC ranks less than a year after that–by God’s grace, and the power of InMail.

This career trajectory hasn’t always been easy, and it hasn’t yet afforded me the stability that my mother desperately desires me to have at the ripe age of 32. My years as an expat weren’t accompanied by a 401(k) or social security contributions. Plus, trying to enter a new industry in your late 20s with no degree in that field and no major connections to get my foot in the door was daunting, to say the least. If I’m being honest, I have no idea what exactly the next year, let alone five, have in store for me as middle age comes lurking slowly around the corner.

Still, I have no regrets. I think that living as a foreigner afforded me the resilience, independence, and perseverance I’ve needed in my role as a novice marketer.

And I love working for an agency. Yes, I’ve had a few more “teachable moments”than others around me, and at times it’s a struggle not to feel overwhelmed being a bit out of my depth–but I’m learning. There’s novelty and variety in my tasks, and it’s so interesting to see how all the cogs within our client work move into place.

I may not know where I’m headed, but I’m grateful for the ability to be where I am now.