Sandbox, 11/6

There was a brief moment, my senior year at Duke, when I wondered if I should have applied to consulting jobs.

I had just returned from a semester living in Manhattan and interning in public radio, courtesy of the Duke in New York: Arts & Media program. I’d felt invigorated living in the city, surrounded by other arts-minded young people eager to build careers in creative professions. I’d even stayed on at my internship through winter break, and I would have stayed longer if returning to Duke for Spring semester wasn’t mandatory for graduation.

But getting back to campus, I was hit with a cold dose of reality. During the semester I’d been gone, it seemed nearly all of my classmates had applied to grad school or fellowships or accepted jobs in consulting or finance. Even a friend of mine who shared my interest in radio and documentary work told me that she had accepted a job with a major management consulting firm after graduation: “I figure I can do it for a few years and make good money, and then maybe transition into something more in line with my media interests.”

I suddenly had serious doubts about my post-Duke future. Should I have gone through the unappealing yet clear-cut consulting recruitment process my friend had, and possibly guaranteed myself a job come September? I knew I wanted to work at the intersection of arts and media, but as I spent every evening after class perusing job sites and emailing my resume out to countless organizations I never heard back from, I wondered how I might have better prepared myself for this critical professional moment. Was I going about this job search wrong?

My well-intentioned cultural anthropology professors only had words of wisdom about applying to PhD programs. The Career Center had tips for formatting a resume, but had little insights into gaining entry into the world of radio and film. My handful of other arts-minded friends felt similarly adrift, and we weren’t sure whom to ask for advice.

Now, I say all this not to criticize Duke or to suggest that those students who dive headfirst into consulting or finance or law school are eschewing passion for practicality. For many, these fields are passions, and for others, financial realities prevent them from gambling with nonlinear and notoriously poor-paying career paths.

Rather, I tell my story to stress how important it is for students with an interest in pursuing careers in arts and media to have a network to turn to; to have positive examples of Duke alumni who have forged paths in those fields; to hear tales of successes and failures, motivations for decisions and outcomes of random connections. This was something that I felt was missing from my Duke experience. Having a sounding board or professional mentor as I went about my pre-graduation job search might have saved me a lot of angst and frustration.

But I want to congratulate the University for recognizing the fact that, historically, there’s been a dearth of on-campus resources for students interested in pursuing careers in entertainment- and media-related fields. Throughout my time at Duke and in the past few years since I’ve graduated, I’ve watched the University make serious strides in placing a renewed emphasis on developing these resources. First came the launch of the Duke Arts Festival, then the construction of the Arts Annex and the student-led formation of duArts. This fall, the new Artstigators initiative has spread across campus with energy, force and bountiful hashtags in an effort to make students aware of arts organizations and events on campus—and to connect students with alumni working in arts and media fields. The Career Center recently hired a new career counselor specifically for the arts, and this weekend’s DEMAN (Duke Entertainment Media and Arts Network) events feature a large number of young alumni who are better positioned than well-established veterans to talk about the realities of finding entry-level arts and media work in today’s post-recession creative economy.