Turtleneck: Nordstrom // Pants: Nordstrom // Earrings: Kendra Scott // Boots: BP. // Tote: Barrington Gifts

Happy Monday and hang on tight because this is going to be kind of a long post! But it has been much requested so I thought I would take the time to write down my career experience this far:)

College

You can’t talk about a career unless you start from the beginning. First things first, my college experience!

I went to the University of Oklahoma, where I majored in Mathematics and graduated in May of 2016. To be honest this was probably one of the hardest things I have ever accomplished in my life. I learnt what discipline was along with how to stay awake for days lol. It taught me a lot about how far I could push myself which was surprisingly further than I thought. While I never wanted to be a mathematician, this course taught me a ton about problem solving. Math equations can be challenging especially writing proofs. If you have ever had an opportunity to see what a mathematics proof looks like then you know the challenges I faced. My final senior capstone was a 16 page mathematics proof about the Rationalization of Pi… haha fun times!

In August of 2017, I made the decision to go back to school to get my Masters of Science in Business Analytics (MSBA) from the Southern Methodist University. I had taken coding classes in college and something my Dad had always instilled in me was finding the next best thing. Which if you know where the future is headed then you know it is AI (Artificial Intelligence). The course was a year long and covered many topics including predictive analysis, social media analytics, many different coding classes and much more. I graduated in May 2018 with a job already lined up. One thing I will say about SMU is the amount of connections I was able to make while I was there was incredible. It gave me so much exposure to business leaders in Dallas that I could not have gotten anywhere else.

Internships

I have had a couple different internships starting my sophomore year of college. All at small privately owned companies in telecommunications. Before I talk about the roles I have held I want to say that I highly recommend taking an internship at a small company if you can. Working at small private companies gave me the opportunity to work right along side senior executives including the CEO. The network you can grow from doing that is incredible. Some of them are my mentors today and have helped shape my career!

Starting sophomore year, I worked in a company here in Dallas for the summer as an IT intern. I worked directly with the CIO of the company who gave me the foundation for IT that I needed. My Junior year, I worked for the same company but in their Product Marketing department. This is where I learned I was more interested in the technology they were creating rather than putting a marketing plan together for their products. After I graduated in May, I had a couple months before my “real” job was going to start so the same company let me come back to work in their HR department under the Chief People Officer. I was not thrilled about being in HR but I got to work on HR analytics and learnt how to use their HR Technology… which you will find out later comes in full circle in my life.

Right before I started my masters at SMU, I got a phone call from the man that I worked for in HR. He had moved companies and wanted an intern to come into a new company he was working for. I joined the company in May 2017 and took on the effort to get my masters as well as work this new role. Boy did I realize that was not going to be easy. In this role I got to see what a PM (project manager) role looked liked. The company was doing a lot of merging & acquisition and I was brought on to help manage the rationalization of processes, technologies, documentations and to align all departments. I honestly think this is where I learnt the most.

Sorority

If you noticed there was a whole year that I left out from when I graduated from college in 2016 to when I went back to school in 2017. During that year I took 9 months and traveled for my sorority! I was a traveling consultant along with 21 other Alpha Phi women from chapters all over the country. This is probably one of the hardest jobs to describe to someone who doesn’t understand what a sorority traveling consultant does. For most of those 9 months I was traveling to different chapters all over the country to help them grow through recruitment. We got to go home occasionally so for the most part I lived out of a 50 pound suitcase!

This year long experience actually lead me to learn what I loved to do. I love to analysis data and understand how to optimize opportunities through it. Which was a big reason I ended up going back to school to get my masters! I will forever be grateful for this opportunity to travel for my sorority. I met some of the most amazing women all over this country and found my best friends along the way!

Job

After I graduated with my masters in May, I went straight into the big world of consulting! I work for a very large consulting firm and currently work on a client that is local to Dallas. Right before I went to training in July I got told I will be training on a specific form of technology. Funny enough it ended up being an HR technology tool that I used in my internship! After training I got placed on the client that I am on right now. Unfortunately I can’t go into a ton of detail about what exactly I do but I get so much exposure to things that someone my age would not get the opportunity to do.

Consulting is not for everyone though because it can be a really unstable career. Lots of traveling is involved with working weekends/nights sometimes so it can get really stressful at times. I will say though someone in a consulting role gets 2-3 years of experience within 1 year because of how fast paced the work is. You also learn a ton about the in’s and out’s of the client because it’s our job to help them either improve what they are doing or implement systems.

I do see the consulting firm I am at being the place that really grows my career and shapes me as a business women. They have incredible amounts of opportunities and people are always willing to lead a helping hand.

Questions

If you have questions, comments or just want to know more about something I have done, I am always willing to answer! You can shoot me an email or leave a comment below:) I might be young and don’t have the most experience but I love helping others grow their careers. So if your looking for advice from someone who is currently growing their career I am more than happy to offer you my best advice!

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