From my first job out of college as an outsourced sales development representative to now, these are the two attributes I give the most credit to as I advance my career.

Communication is key to almost anything anyone does, and my career is full of examples.

• My current position as a Marketing Manager didn’t exist at my organization until I had proactive conversations with my manager and our marketing director about how I could build a marketing role as the org grew.

• I would’ve never applied to graduate school at UW without a deep conversation with my parents about the professional rut I felt stuck in and the different directions I could go from there.

• And I never would’ve had the confidence to pursue a pivot into UX from marketing without a number of enlightening (and somewhat frightening) conversations with professors and instructors about what getting into and working in the world of UX would actually look like.

But without initiative, all these conversations are just that- conversations. Curiosity is what drives me to actually take action.

• As I transitioned into my marketing role, I was curious about design, so I took it upon myself to learn Illustrator, InDesign, Premiere Pro, and Canva to a level where I could proudly produce professional content.

• Curiosity (figuratively) drove me to (literally) drive across the country to pursue a Masters in Communication at UW in order to see what kind of career growth opportunities I could find.

• And curiosity is what compelled me to take any UX classes in the first place - and from there I was hooked.