I started my undergraduate education at Northern Arizona University. Being both a creative and analytical person, I chose to major and minor in what I enjoyed and found interesting. In 2003 I graduated with a bachelor of science in Photography with a minor in Psychology. After receiving my degree, I went down a similar path of choosing a career: wanting to find something that would allow me to apply both my creative and analytical strengths. Upon graduating, I secured an entry-level position at a local advertising agency. I continuously grew from there, and reached a goal of becoming a Manager and over-seeing a team of people. While achieving this had allowed me to reach both a personal and professional goal, it had also given me the space to look back on my career and reassess what my next goal might be.
Throughout my career I’ve found that I’m most fulfilled by the opportunities to work creatively on assignments that involve basic html, email marketing, and designing collateral. Unfortunately, these types of tasks had been a small percentage of my job duties; it turns out that the career path I chose was mainly analytical. While I was able to perform those analytical tasks effectively, I discovered that my creative passion was not being fulfilled.
In my time as a marketer, my goal was to grow within an organization by producing results and acquiring promotions. But in doing so, I neglected my true desire to have a creative career. Now that I have achieved my career goal, it had become clear that I was not entirely passionate in what I was doing day-to-day and that success obtained by moving up the corporate ladder was not always the best reason to continue. This reflection had ultimately lead me to a new goal: the decision to further my education in Visual Communication Design MVCD 3+ program at Arizona State University.