Thumbnail: Guyana Chronicle
Did you ever play dress up as a kid? You step into your mom’s heels and don her pearls and strut around the house like you were the next Marilyn Monroe. You didn’t really think that hard about your future or what you really wanted to be when you grew up. All you really knew was that you wanted to be a pretty grown up with pretty clothes. We’ve all been there.
Photo: Ace Baby Furniture
Through the years, my idea of what my future would look like fleshed out a bit. I wanted to be a lawyer. Harvard Law was the only place I could imagine myself going. Then after shadowing a lawyer for a few days, I realized that getting stuck with traffic violations and paperwork sounded like pure hell.
Then I wanted to be a psychiatrist. I loved the challenge of figuring people out and the science of how the brain worked, but more than that, I loved helping people and making others happy. Then my mom reminded me that I would have to deal with sometimes dangerous situations.
I wanted to be an Event Planner for a bit. I was brilliant at micromanaging. Event Planning seemed like the perfect career choice for me– but then my school counselor reminded me that a degree in Hospitality severely limits my opportunity for growth in my career.
I had considered a career in politics—Congresswoman Makenna Lutz did have a certain ring to it, and I am passionate about the world of politics and the ways that we could make a change for the better in our world for women and minorities—but the current political atmosphere was too much for me to enjoy as a career.
Photo: Parade
So there I was, a senior in high school, not having a clue what I wanted to do with my life. So I took what I knew and tried to find what was really best for me. I was persuasive, I loved psychology, and I loved paying attention to detail. I was impassioned by the idea of empowering people. I grew up in the arts–having been in choir for 15 years and taking several other performing and visual arts classes. Why not advertising?
I am new to the world of Advertising, but every second I spend in it, the more at home I feel. The fast pace, the competition of climbing the corporate ladder, the freedom to be expressive and inspiring. Perhaps the largest reason I decided to go into advertising is to empower people. We all know that media has an effect on how we view ourselves. I wanted to use that outlet to empower and inspire women by showing them powerful images.
Photo: 48 West Agency
Everything I’ve learned on my journey to this point has reassured me that this is the person I was dressing up as all those years ago. Someone powerful and sure and successful and, yes, fabulously well dressed.