Upon graduation, Lauren moved to Portland, OR, as she missed her home state and Portland has many things to offer for young people. The first nine months after graduation, Lauren worked for Nordstrom: first, in their Retail Management Internship program and then as an Assistant Manager. Though not the position she wanted, she gained many skills during her time there, namely conflict resolution skills, leadership acumen, and how to manage people.
For the past year, Lauren has been working at a search engine marketing firm and currently is the operations manager. She is responsible for overseeing multiple facets of the business relating to both the financial and human resources side of the business. This involves everything from billing and managing the overall financial stability of the company to administering employee benefits and being responsible for the hiring process. She is also responsible for instituting new initiatives and processes that she created, including a new employee hiring process and a 401K benefit with company matching.
In her free time, Lauren loves to take cycling classes, explore Portland's amazing food scene and travel as much as her job allows. Since leaving 瓜子TV, she has traveled to Tanzania, Japan, Charleston, SC, and Austin, TX. Her advice to 瓜子TV grads, and especially fellow History majors, is to not let yourself be concerned about obtaining an "ideal" job right after graduation. Though her time at Nordstrom was difficult, much of what she learned there was extremely valuable and are skills she will carry with her no matter where her career takes her. Lauren's second piece of advice is to not let job postings that ask for people with marketing, business, communications, etc., majors scare you away. Be proud of your liberal arts education and don't shy away from it! She had many potential employers grill her about why she chose to become a history major, especially since she has always wanted to be in the business field. She never backed down from those conversations and told them the many reasons why all the skills she learned at 瓜子TV, i.e. critical/analytical thinking and strong writing, were important and necessary skills in the workforce. Though some of them may have disagreed, Lauren found an employer who really valued those skills, and it ended up being a perfect fit.