Throughout the search for my first job out of college, I always said I didn’t want to work in Marketing and I didn’t want to work for a software company. And now I’m doing both – and couldn’t be happier.
Thanks to the Orr Fellowship, I have been working at
WebLink International, a leading provider of online software for membership-based organizations, as a Marketing Coordinator. However, my job title has never limited the types of projects thrown into my workload.
Hopefully through this blog you will understand why the unique opportunities of the Orr Fellowship made this entry-level job hard to pass up, and why keeping an open mind during your job search could lead you on a career path you'll love.
A struggle for many college undergraduates is deciding between going to work and getting more education after graduation. No matter your personal opinions,
this article from CareerRealism.com gives some pretty convincing statistics about why you should
invest in your career early – and helped me reaffirm my decision to take the leap and accept my entry level marketing job with
WebLink International.
And as though that article wasn’t enough, last night at our Business Leader Meeting, Lorraine Ball of
RoundPeg reiterated the point of investing in your career before going to graduate school. The main reason:
If you go directly into an MBA program, you have little real-world business experiences from which to draw. Lorraine shared how much more value she got out of graduate school because she worked for a few years between her degrees. Especially in times of 10%+ unemployment rates it’s easy to play it safe, go back to school, and hope things are better when you are ready to enter the workforce; but, as J.D. O’Donnell says in
his article, “I wish [students] could talk with all the unemployed MBAs out there right now who are knee-deep in loan debt.”
Joining the
Governor Bob Orr Entrepreneurial Fellowship is a great way to invest in your career early. The jobs with the Fellowship’s host companies provide Fellows valuable career experience in fast paced jobs – experiences that will allow you to bring more to graduate school discussions and classes (if you decide to go back).
Plus, getting experience in fast growing Indianapolis companies can help make the decision about going back to school easier. Some realize they don’t need an MBA to get where they want to go. Others learn that getting more education is the path they need to take. But no matter what, there is no doubt that during your two years in the Fellowship you will benefit from its unrivaled work experiences and networking opportunities in Indianapolis.
The propensity of students to give back to their communities while in college, rarely translates after they graduate (based on my observations). It’s not because we become bad people as soon as we leave a college campus, it’s because, frankly, the opportunities aren’t as accessible and finding time between working your first full time job and all the other responsibilities the real world brings new grads is often hard.
Through the Orr Fellowship’s Personal Service Initiative (PSI), Fellows give back to their local communities in whatever way they choose. Some prefer to mentor, others prefer to walk dogs at the Humane Society. Personally, I am reconnecting with a non-profit I was involved with during college. But no matter our interest, the Orr Fellowship allows us follow our own passions related to volunteerism.
When talking to prospective Fellows, I love to talk about the Fellowship’s PSI because it doesn’t allow us to put service on the back-burner. Rather, the Fellowship provides the extra motivation to give back in our own right. Plus, doing group service projects is another great way for our group (who all work in different entry-level jobs in entrepreneurial companies) to bond!
So, although the Orr Fellowship prides itself on the business connections it creates, giving back through the Personal Service Initiation is yet another unique opportunity of the program.
As DePauw and Wabash students and alumni everywhere get ready for arguably one of the greatest sports weekends (for our schools at least), I can’t help but start feeling nostalgic. Even though I’m less than one year out of college, it’s weekends such as “Monon Weekend” that make me long to be back at DePauw.
But then I remember the stresses of senior year and am quickly snapped back into the reality that my entry level job isn’t bad! No longer am I balancing finding my first full-time job with senior seminar, other classes, and extracurricular activities.
At this time last year I was in the middle of the Governor Bob Orr Fellowship recruitment process – excited about the possibility of working in a high-growth Indianapolis company. Never did I consider that a year later I would be working closely with a couple of Wallys. But, despite our innate desires to compete with each other, the reality is that when it comes to doing great work, we are able to put aside our alma maters and come together.
And that’s one of the things I love about the Orr Fellowship. Not only has the DePauw/Wabash rivalry been enhanced (no longer does the distance between our schools hinder the pre-game trash talking), but it brings together individuals who might never have gotten a chance to meet/work with each other.
The sad reality is it takes more effort to find friends in the “real world” than on a college campus; especially when working with a small, entrepreneurial company where you could be one of only a couple 20-somethings in the office. So having that built in network of young professionals the Orr Fellowship brings together is a very unique opportunity.
(GO TIGERS!)
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