Disclaimer: The views expressed by our interviewees are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of GradSimple. We only edit these responses for clarity. All opinions remain those of the interviewee.
- Name: Tess I.
- Year Of Graduation: 2020
- College/University: Towson University
- Major: Mass Communications with a minor in marketing
What was your major and why did you choose it?
I went to Towson University which is a school just north of Baltimore. It’s a state school for Maryland. I went there because I moved here in 2015 and could get in-state tuition. They offer a major called mass communications and I did a track in advertising with a minor in marketing. I was doing business originally, but I could not pass calculus. I changed to communications just because I wanted to graduate on time. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do, so I stuck with the easiest thing that seemed like it would still open doors for me even if I wanted to try different fields.
What do you do for a living now?
Before graduating, I did a marketing internship with MedStar, which is a local branch of hospitals around this area. I did that internship early on in 2019, pre-pandemic. I thought they were going to hire me after graduation because I interned with them, but they were not hiring anyone due to the pandemic.
I’m now a sales representative, and I work for a Fortune 500 company called Cintas. We provide facility services and work apparel for businesses all across the country. I just completed a management trainee program with them which is really exciting. It’s a program that’s designed to give you upper management experience. It was for about 15 months, and it was really cool. It puts you in different rotations throughout the company, so for example, I was a manager in our plant and I was a manager in service with drivers and managing their routes as well. I enjoyed the experience, but I’m still not really where I’d like to be with them yet.
Can you tell me about your job search experience after graduation?
I applied to between 60 and 70 jobs post-graduation, anything entry level but ideally something that fit with communications. I was a server before the pandemic and of course, all kinds of restaurant work was put on pause for a while. I ended up becoming a nanny instead, and I had like five or six families. I was with the families from around 6 am to 6 pm because people were still going to work and they needed someone to watch the children. I did that until probably October 2021. It took me a while to find my sales job. My friends had jobs lined up and I remember feeling the pressure of “my God, I still have no idea what I want to do.” I had this degree, I checked that box, and my parents started putting a lot of pressure on me. They thought I wasn’t living the way I should have been, and that I wasn’t doing enough to be an adult. But it was a pandemic, like the job market was so tough, especially as a new graduate. No one wanted to take the risk.
One of the women who I nannied for told me that my personality would be a good fit for her company, and she knew I was looking for a full-time position. I sat down for an interview and luckily got the job. She’s the reason I got hired. She really helped me get my foot in the door.
Why did you choose your major?
The first year and a half in college, I failed accounting twice and calculus once. My parents kinda freaked out. My mom was like, “I never failed any classes, how dare you?!” I was crying to my academic advisor. I was trying to figure out what I could do to graduate on time and just get this done. Part of me didn’t even want to be in college. I wanted to try doing a trade or starting my own business, but my parents did not consider either of those things to be an option. I was not allowed to drop out, but the business major I’d originally picked clearly wasn’t working out. My academic advisor told me that communications worked with all of the classes I’d been taking. I was able to keep my minor in marketing, and I didn’t have to take calculus again, which I was thrilled about. I had the worst teacher for calculus, and I remember thinking to myself, “I am never going to make it in business.” But with my new major, I was able to do a lot of creative classes. Communications allowed me to be creative via advertising and PR classes.
If I asked you three years ago, what would you think you’d be doing right now?
I would have not thought I’d still be in sales. I would have said I’d be on a path to upper management. My company set me up to open a location in five years and be a general manager. Ideally, it would be amazing to do this in less than five years, maybe four, because I completed that management program.
Myself from three years ago would be proud of where I am right now because I finished that program, and that was one of the things I actually wanted to do in college early on. It took me a while to get in, and I’m very glad I did.
Can you tell me more about this management program you went through?
I did a year and a half of sales at a different company, and during my last two months, I began applying to these management programs. A lot of the really big companies have them. I applied to Enterprise and Cintas, and Cintas called me back immediately. So, I left my first company which they were very unhappy about. I had a manager that sat me down and told me that I would never make it. He said that I was jumping companies, and he told me no one was going to hire me. He said I didn’t know what I was getting myself into and really tried to cut me down. I remember thinking to myself that any place was better than here and I said to myself that I would never be the kind of manager he was. I finished the program with Cintas which led into a sales role, and I’ve been here ever since.
What are you struggling with right now?
I’m grappling with this idea of not necessarily needing to stay with one company to be successful, but on the other hand, if you’re getting good benefits even if you have a couple of difficult coworkers, it might be worth it. That’s what I’m dealing with at Cintas right now, and it’s been making me question if I should even be staying at the organization, but I have a lot of great coworkers as well. There’s always going to be people you don’t get along with, like there’s always going to be that one jerk. Cintas gives me stock in the company, and I have a great 401K match. They match almost 100% of everything I put in which is fantastic and unheard of. The company itself is going to just keep growing too. They don’t even have enough people to staff all the locations they want to open up. So I’m stuck with this idea of do I stay with a company that has a lot of potential and sees a lot of potential in me, or do I leave and try to get a better role?
I ended up calling my uncle to talk about it. He’s been very successful in his career in Silicon Valley. He worked with Jeff Bezos at one point. I wanted his advice, and he told me not to sacrifice long-term success for short-term pain. He said I’ve shown my organization how hard I can work, how invested I am, and how I understand the product and the industry. If I leave and go to another company, I can’t always replicate that type of in-depth understanding because I’m not going to be doing another management program. The company invested in me and they gave me recognition for it, they want to promote me, and I have a path. Not many other companies will set their employees up like that.
If we traveled three years into the future, what would you hope we’d see?
I hope I’ll be almost ready to be promoted to general manager. I think I would be very proud of myself and I think I’d be a good mentor to other women because the industry I’m in is very blue-collar. There’s a lot of men and not a lot of women. I think I can be a good role model to help them through things I’ve dealt with in the past, like being told that I can’t do a job or mistreatment by management. I want to inspire people to be the best version of themselves.
If money was not a factor, what would you spend your time doing?
I would pursue entrepreneurship. I would probably start my own business selling my art prints, open a flower shop, or do something more fulfilling. I love the beauty of the world and being inspired by the world, and right now I can’t really express that, even though I’d like to.
I also got into art school before I got my first job. It was a graduate program for a Master of Fine Arts. I have always been a painter and I love painting mountains and landscapes. The school I was accepted to was Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). Their tuition is like $80,000 a year, and I knew I’d be in student debt until I was like 60 if I decided to go. I would definitely go to school again if I could, to pursue my love of art.
I actually had a TikTok account where I would post time lapses of me making art, and people just loved it. I got so much interaction and suggestions from people, and it was amazing to build that kind of community. But then, I had a coworker find my TikTok. He thought it was so cool, but in my mind, I was mortified because I’ve always kept them very separate. I deleted my account permanently. I know I shouldn’t have done that, but I was so scared about people from work finding it and what they’d think. Like I said, I work in a very blue-collar industry and I don’t really talk about my personal hobbies at my job. So when someone found out about it, I was really stressed. I think my goal for this next year is to pursue it again and somehow open a side business and have a platform to sell art prints.
What advice would you give to current students or recent graduates?
If I could tell all 18/19-year-olds one thing, it’s that you’re all focused on things right now that will not matter in less than 10 years. You probably care more about college parties, going out and making a bunch of friends, or focusing on your boyfriend or significant other, and college is just checking a box in exchange for a piece of paper. It’s not. It’s dedicated time to figure out what you want to do with your life, and I wish I’d really explored every possibility and every major. I wish I’d sat down and gone through what each major would have done for me and the types of jobs I could get. You need to look at what you’re actually good at doing, and what you can see yourself doing every single day.
As I mentioned before as well, I failed a couple of my classes during college. It felt like the end of the world at the time, but I had to look at failure as an opportunity. It’s one door shutting but another opening. Failing classes did not impact my ability to get a job either. I submitted my transcripts to one job, but no one really asked. All that mattered was that I had the degree, at the end of the day. Of course, try to do your best, but give yourself some grace.
Also, I never really knew in college how important it would be to sell myself to people. I think I interviewed early on with a few different companies and never got past the first interview because I wasn’t confident or I just wasn’t selling myself in the right way to them.
Connect With Tess:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ironst/
