Like my LinkedIn Profile, my career is still a bit of a work in progress. I graduated college last year with a B.A. in Communication Studies and minors in Biology and Psychology. After changing my major several times, I finally decided to major in communications with a minor in psychology because, through my work as an orientation leader at my school and as a C.N.A. at a nursing home throughout college, I knew I loved working with people and excelled at building relationships. But I think I also chose communications because it’s a broad field, and I have always had a very broad range of interests. I love to learn new things. From a very young age, I loved stories and wanted to write. I read A LOT (and still do), but I also enjoy the challenge presented in science and technology fields. So, I had a hard time deciding what to major in and what to do with my communications degree. However, my first internship at an engineering company during my final semester of college helped me to see some of the career possibilities within the professional communications field. During my internship, I was able to learn a bit about internal communications, company branding, and digital marketing. I was really interested in learning about how a company creates and communicates it’s brand story. So I started reading more about digital marketing and learned about SEO and marking content up in HTML. I thought I might enjoy working as marketing writer or digital marketing strategist.However, as my internship came to an end, I was offered a position as a technical communications specialist, and I found that technical writing fit my interest in science, technology, and engineering, as well as in writing. It’s been exciting and challenging to learn how to communicate complex technical and scientific concepts in a in a user-friendly way. I enjoy the challenge of planning the most accessible and efficient way to communicate the tasks and concepts a user will need to operate, or make use of, a particular product. I’ve had so many opportunities to learn new skills. I was able to help convert user manual information to XML/DITA and use DITA maps to export this information to multiple formats from a single source. I’ve also had the opportunity to research products and concepts, be a part of interdisciplinary teams, interview SMEs, manage multiple competing projects, and author and edit procedural and informational content. Overall, it’s been a wonderful learning experience, and I look forward to finding out what I’ll have the opportunity to learn next in my career.
