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- Year Of Graduation: 2014
- College/University: Tulane University
- Major: Psychology
What do you do for a living, or how are you supporting yourself right now?
Currently, I work for IHG Hotels and Resorts. I’m a strategy manager in our marketing department, so I sit at the intersection of a lot of different teams across our brand teams and our co-brand team, helping bring everyone to the table and think through things strategically.
On a typical day, there’s usually a standup meeting for whichever project I’m currently working on and supporting, which involves sitting down with stakeholders across different teams. There are different workstreams, with people working on different initiatives for whatever that project might be. It could be something like how we’re helping hotels improve the guest experience, or how we’re improving technology in our hotels, things like that. My individual work time usually looks like creating PowerPoints, running analysis in Excel, and ultimately creating a clear story to present to senior leadership.
Networking is really important in my current role, too. You know, building relationships around the company, whether that’s grabbing lunch or going to get coffee down the street.
Can you tell me about your experience finding a job after graduating from undergrad?
I was a sixth grade teacher from 2015, after graduation, through 2017. The first year was definitely a learning experience, and then the second year was just really challenging. I had students with some really hard stories, and I was also working 60 to 70 hours a week because I was coaching at the school at the same time. I had every intention of coming back for a third year, but I think I got to the point where I knew I was unhappy and felt like I’d lost sight of my original mission. Frankly, I was just super burned out and didn’t have anything left in my cup to give.
I finished out my second year of teaching and chose not to come back the following year. I also had a couple of other teachers at my grade level who left at the end of the year. It was well known across the school that we had a really challenging group of students that year. Not that it was the students’ fault, but the situation was really challenging for a lot of teachers, and when you’re working 60 to 70 hours a week, it’s just hard to continue to show up every day and give your all.
Around that time I’d been getting plugged in with CrossFit, and as I’d mentioned, I was also coaching at the school, and I loved coaching. So I started coaching CrossFit on the side while I tried to figure out what to do next. I ended up working for a small business that taught two to five year olds how to play soccer for about a year.
Even when I was teaching, I had planned on going back to grad school, and I’d already taken the GRE (Graduate Record Examination). So I really used that year to figure out what type of graduate program I wanted to go to and what I wanted to study. I thought about an MBA, but I ultimately landed on the therapy route and applied to a master’s program in therapy. I started that in the fall of 2018. I ended up pivoting a bit within the program, so it became more focused on cultural studies. I got to design my own thesis, which was super cool. I graduated from that program in the summer of 2020.
What was your job search experience finishing your graduate program in the midst of 2020?
I’d had some interviews with a few companies, and around March, when everything started to shut down. Basically, the response was all the same: we have no idea what’s going on, we’re on a total hiring freeze, we’re not hiring anyone.
So I pivoted, and that’s when I did my MBA at Georgia Tech. I applied super late, which I would not advise, but it was also 2020 and no one knew what they were doing. Schools ended up having openings they didn’t expect to have, so it actually turned out to be a really good time to start an MBA program.
I graduated in May of 2022 and had already received an offer to go into strategy consulting, which is what a lot of my classmates did. There’s a joke in MBA programs that you go to an MBA to figure out what you want to do, and if you still don’t know, you go into consulting.
Consulting is great because you get to try a lot of different companies and industries, and you’re constantly changing projects every eight to twelve weeks. For me, that felt like a great opportunity to try different things and figure out what I might be interested in. I also got to work with senior leaders and see how companies make decisions at the upper levels, how they’re advised, and how those decisions actually get made.
Most people end up doing consulting for between two to four years. I think that’s the general stat. I’m right around my two-and-a-half-year mark now.
My current role is technically in marketing, but it’s still largely strategy-focused. Even though I don’t have a deep marketing background, I’m able to bring a lot of the experience I gained as a strategy consultant.
Why did you choose your undergrad major?
I actually started as an architecture major, and did that for about two years, then switched into psychology. From probably eight or nine years old, that was the path I thought I was going to take. I loved drawing as a kid. I started drawing floor plans, and we had a family friend who said, “You know, that’s a job.” I was hooked. I thought, “If this is what I can do all day for my whole life, why wouldn’t I do that?” I also think sometimes careers feel more like trying different things and working your way up a corporate ladder, whereas architecture felt more like a vocation, where you pick something and work at it for a lifetime.
When I got to college though, I think there’s this transition everyone experiences when they get to university, where you have to figure out who you are on your own for the first time. I was doing a lot of different things. I was working a part-time job, I was involved in my fraternity, I was helping drive student success on campus, and I was also in architecture. Architecture, oftentimes, means staying up until 3:00 or 4:00 a.m., pulling all-nighters to get projects done.
I was burned out. I was stretched way too thin, trying to do way too much, and my mental health was really struggling. I didn’t know if I could see myself doing that for the rest of my life anymore. I had a lot of conversations throughout my sophomore year trying to figure out if this was something I wanted to stick with or if I wanted to pivot.
Every summer in college, I worked at a summer camp, and I really loved that job. To this day, it’s been one of my favorite jobs. I eventually worked my way up into leadership positions at the camp, and every time I came back to college at the end of the summer, I thought, “Man, I love working with people. I love building relationships.”
I also loved my AP psychology class in high school, so psychology and working with people felt like a natural bridge. I originally thought maybe I’d go the PhD route in psychology after I graduated. I also knew people doing Teach for America and other programs with a similar mission, which is how I got into teaching after graduating. It felt like a natural extension of working with kids at camp and leaning into the psychology side of things.
What does purpose mean to you? Do you think you’re living a purpose-driven life currently?
I think purpose means you get to wake up every day and do what you’re best at, what you have a natural gift for, and also solve the world’s problems. I don’t know if I can say I’m living a purpose-driven life right now.
I think I’m kind of in this in-between phase. I’m getting close to my mid-30s and starting to ask these existential questions, like, who do I want to be known as? What legacy do I want to leave? What impact do I want to have on the world?
Frankly, I do think that can be really difficult in a corporate culture, especially at some of these really large companies. It can be hard to make a day-to-day impact. I think it’s one thing to show up, support your coworkers, and build relationships, but it’s another thing to know that every day you can point to something and say, “Hey, that’s something I impacted. That’s how I’m contributing to a legacy.”
What’s your biggest struggle right now? What led to it, and how are you moving forward?
My biggest struggle is still trying to figure out what I want to do. I think I’m at this point where I’m realizing I’m still at least 30 years away from quote-unquote retirement, and I’m starting to ask the question, what do I want to do for the next 30 years? And if it’s not this, then what is it?
For me, work has never been something where I just show up to get a paycheck, to make ends meet, or to support a lifestyle. I want work to provide meaning. So, I’m really wrestling with whether I choose to find my meaning outside of work, show up, do my best, and be okay with doing what’s assigned to me, or whether I try to find something I get to go to every day and feel a sense of purpose from. Maybe the pay won’t be as high, and I’ll have to make some lifestyle sacrifices, but I’ll know that every day I show up, I’m making an impact.
What do you want to spend more time working on, either personally or professionally?
I’m really into fitness right now. I’ve gotten super into marathons and I’m starting to train for my first half Ironman, which is something I really enjoy. I sometimes coach on the side as well, and I’d love to have more time for that.
I do think my current job gives me a lot more free time, so I’m able to pursue passions like fitness or the arts. I have a lot more time for reading as well. My Goodreads is at an all-time high this year, which is super cool. I have time to go to local theater productions and spend time with family and friends.
I’m really grateful for that, but I’m also trying to figure out how to balance all of that with continuing to learn new skills that I could eventually leverage into a different career.
How do you define being a successful person?
I think for me it comes back to impact. Like, what impact do you have on the people around you, and specifically, what positive impact are you able to leave? What positive impact can you leave in the world or in the relationships around you?
I’m a big believer in leaving things better than you found them. And for me, that’s really what success, and impact, comes down to.
If we traveled three years into the future of your life, what do you want to achieve? What would you hope has changed?
I would love to have a really clear answer on what I want to do for at least the next 10 to 20 years, and I’d like to be working toward that. I think it’s also about continuing to pour into the relationships I have right now, like my friendships and my partner, and building a life together.
What’s the biggest lesson or piece of advice you wish you’d known earlier?
I think part of what I wish I had known earlier is that if you’re in a place, either in high school or post-college, where you can take a gap year and you have the finances or family support to do that, I would highly encourage it. Taking that extra year to get work experience and try out different things can be really valuable. That’s something I wish I had considered between high school and college: taking a break from education and starting to think about what I actually wanted, instead of just continuing down the path that everyone else was following. So, I think it’s about not being afraid to take breaks. Even later in your career, don’t be afraid to take a step back and ask yourself, is this what I want? What do I really want to spend my time doing?
Connect With Josh
- LinkedIn: @JoshuaODowd
- Blog: @joshy.odowd
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