“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
I dodged the question at every family gathering and at dinner parties. My eyes would wander around the room, searching for an answer amongst the “grown-ups”: doctors, teachers, lawyers. When will it happen? How much longer until my “aha” moment?
A pop star — my previous dream occupation until first grade — wasn’t in the picture anymore. “I don’t know,” I’d say. “I’ll figure it out.”
Finally, I graduated high school. I thought I’d go to college and finally know what I wanted to be when I grew up. I left what I knew in my hometown of Las Vegas and moved to a small town on the Central Coast of California. I traded my sneakers for flip-flops, my regular boots for cowboy boots, and dove head-first into a new experience. Knowing no one, and keeping an open mind, I hoped this time at school would pull me toward my future — whatever that may be.
After sitting through my first Zoom Shakespearean literature class as an English major (“To be or not to be” — I wasn’t either of those), I found myself questioning how I could apply this in the real world.
Scrambling to change majors, I took a leap of faith and switched to communications, still unsure of what exactly I wanted to do. A broader major with more options for a career — surely, I’d narrow in on something soon.
One class after the other, from Media Criticism to modern-day Rhetorical Theory, I found myself gravitating toward the world of pop culture, media and news, but still uncertain of my path. “What’s even out there?” I thought to myself.
As the oldest child in my family, I had no older siblings to look up to or learn from. How do you figure out your career? What jobs are out there? And what in the world do people do at work all day? One internship after the other, I thought, “This work is fun, I’m learning a lot, but I don’t feel fulfilled.”
College graduation pulled the best four years of my life to a screeching halt. Earning my degree was an exciting feat, but I still questioned the direction of my future.
I held onto the idea of free-falling somewhere into the broad world of communications, marketing and PR, but where to start? I hoped my diploma had some sort of answer inside of it.
My final internship at college was wrapping up, and it was nearly time to close this chapter of my life. I started picking up projects and was collaborating more and more with the PR team when I heard the *click*. It was like a peephole in this world of career confusion and chaos. Through the hole, it was bright, fun and meaningful.
Since then, I’ve found my way to Hoffman and am relishing the feeling of fulfillment. I’m excited to keep learning and growing in the PR space, especially B2B tech PR.
Although I don’t exactly feel like a “grown-up” just yet, I’ve had my first “aha” moment. PR clicked for me. It feels right, it’s exciting and it feels as though I’ve found the puzzle piece at the bottom of the box that had gone missing for so long.
PR combines every intricate part of my life I enjoy: storytelling, nurturing relationships, leveraging voices, untangling information and creating something meaningful.
I’m excited for the road ahead now that it has a little more pavement than before.
Here’s to “growing up,” piecing together your puzzle and finding whatever makes a *click*!
