Career Options: Alumni
What are my Career Options?
Alumni News
If you are an alum or if you're about to graduate, we'd like to hear from you. What are you doing, or planning to do? Send to: Linda Clark
Gavin Van Ausdeln (2007) has been admitted to Notre Dame Law School. He received a $20,000 annual fellowship.
David Bray (2011) I will be attending the University of Oregon School of Law in the fall. Thank you for providing an excellent atmosphere to set me up for graduate school.
Stacy Bunnell (2008) I'm working full time at a group home for behaviorally challenged foster children in Everett and I'm going to school part time for my Master's in Counseling Psychology through City University of Seattle.
Abigail Carlson (2009) I've been teaching English in South Korea for the past year and it has been amazing. To get here I went through a great small company: Adventure Teaching. They are Seattle based. I met the CEO, Scot Sustad, at a career fair at WWU in the Spring of 2009. I applied with AT and had an interview. Immediately, they started looking for a job for me. While I waited, I took a TESL certification class. I recommend this to anyone thinking about teaching English abroad- 120 hours certification is what schools look for over here. Not only will it help one get a job, it will help with teaching strategies, lesson plans and overall understanding of how students learn a second language. AT set up interviews with schools in Korea. Finally I accepted an invitation to work in a city called Busan. I did my research, which came in handy later - but I was in for a huge culture shock when I arrived in Korea. You won't know what it's like to live in a foreign country until you do it. It has been one of the best experiences of my life. I have loved every minute of it, it has given me a better sense of who I am and who the world is made of. Being a minority has humbled my soul. I can't explain how great this time has been. I recommend to anyone who is up for an adventure to follow in my footsteps.
Laura Mariko Cheifetz (2000) I currently work at a small foundation in Atlanta supporting leadership development among people interested in ministry and religious studies. I think my sociology background has been invaluable through this work, although it was of course supplemented by a divinity degree and, this past May, an MBA.
Kyle Crawford (2008) I'm in grad school at the University of Pittsburgh, School of Social Work getting my MSW with a concentration in Social Administration. A PhD. is tempting (research, professor, etc.) and I am interested in being published, so I'm attempting to be a research assistant while in school. If I don't go on to a doctorate, I should be well-equipped to run an organization.
Anna Doolittle (2008) After graduating from Western I began work at Hopelink, a non-profit that serves low-income families and individuals in north and east King County. I started in Housing Services as the Intake Case Manager. In June of 2009 I moved into a position as a Case Manager in the Family Development Program. In July of this year I left Hopelink and accepted a position at Wellspring Family Services, a non-profit serving low-income families in the Seattle area. I now work with families in transitional housing, providing intensive therapeutic case management to address the root causes of their homelessness. Working in direct services is difficult, but extremely rewarding. I hope that furthering my education will allow me to serve these clients better.
Keisha Eremic (2006) I have been working in the financial industry since graduating Western. My career began taking on contract projects w/ startup hedge funds working with human capital and resource management. I transitioned to a full time role for an IT Firm called Eze Castle Integration (their bread and butter being hedge funds, with over 550 clients worldwide). I bulked up my experience in marketing and designed the social media plan, before accepting my offer from Deutsche Bank. I am a Business Analyst- focused on communications for the group (revamping and maintaining the group’s webpage, designing a blog and microblogging (the bank has its own version of Twitter). I collaborate with folks in London and Singapore (majority). While I didn’t study IT in school (BA Literature), I was able to leverage from my personal pursuits and build from those with the help of peers. Working at a truly global investment bank on Wall Street is high-demand and extremely rewarding. In additional to my regular work load, I am on the NextGen Steering Committee. The group is one of a handful in the bank, which focuses on attracting and maintaining junior talent by approaching social gaps (Women on Wall Street, Rainbow Group- LGBT*…etc).
Alicia Gleason graduated in December 2010 with a double-major in Sociology and Psychology. She then began working as a Program Director at the Boys and Girls Club in Anacortes from September2010 - June 2011. In June she started both of her new jobs. She's currently working full-time at Sea Mar Visions, an In Patient Chemical Dependency Treatment Center for 13-17 year old girls. She's also working on-call at the Whatcom County Triage/Crisis Respite Center. Alicia says, "Before BGC I worked at QFC grocery stores for 5 and half years (my first job in HS). Having been there so long I ended up getting some supervisorexperience as a Front End Coordinator. I also was an Event Coordinator for the WWU Psychology Club as well as a tutor for the psych department, and a Research Assistant. So all of that in combo with the relevant classes I had taken in both my psych and soc majors is what got me to job at BGC. Then BGC opened the doors to Visions and Crisis Respite!" Next Alicia plans to apply to the MSW program at the UW for next fall.
Michael Lohnes (2008) has taken a job at the State Legislature's Office of Program Research.
Ryan Masters (2003 Outstanding graduatuing senior) finished his Phd at the University of Texas-Austin (May 2011) and is now RWJ Fellow at Columbia University in NYC (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health and Society Scholar, 2011-13)
Allison McGrath (2010 Outstanding Graduating Senior) has decided to start her graduate career at Vanderbilt University. Besides fully funding her for five years (including summers), they are also paying her moving costs to Nashville.
Nicole Neiditz (2006) I am living in Honolulu, Hawaii and have been working as a case manager for Catholic Charities Hawaii for almost 4 years. Now my next step begins, and I plan to go back to school. I plan to apply to the MPA (Masters in Public Affairs) program at the University of Colorado, Denver.
JanRose Ottaway Martin (2005) In January 2006, I headed off for my 27 months in the Peace Corps. I was stationed as a Public Health Extension Volunteer in Guinea, West Africa, teaching preventative health to a very small village called Katougouma. It wasn't easy, but the slogan for the Peace Corps, "The toughest job you'll ever love" was 100% accurate. Every day was an adventure that was constantly eye-opening and humbling. We evacuated due to civil unrest in January 2007. I came back to the states, only to help reopen the program, with 13 other volunteers, a few months later-this time in a city fighting a cholera epidemic.
After Peace Corps, March 2008, I returned to the states again. My first position was as Program Coordinator and Case Manager for the elderly at an Adult Day Health in Snohomish County. I was there for a year, and loved the work, but, due to state budget concerns, started looking elsewhere. Now I am a Mental Health Case Manager for people with a history of homelessness in Seattle. I am completely in love with the work I do, and will be pursuing a Masters in Social Work in the near future. Western gave me a good base for this career, and Peace Corps gave me, beyond other things, a huge push ahead on resumes.
Philip Pendergast is attending the PhD program at Colorado-Boulder.
Nathaniel Porter is attending the PhD program at Penn State.
Adrienne Ramm (2011) I’m a recent grad from the Sociology department, and am now working at the International Rescue Committee in Seattle through AmeriCorps.
Alyson Reimer (2010) began law school last year at Western State University School of Law. She ranked in the top one percent of her first semester class and was recruited by the law school at University of California-Berkeley. She has been admitted to the Berkeley-Harvard exchange program that admits up to five students to spend their third yea rat Harvard Law School.
Katherine Shaw (2011) I will be starting graduate school at the University of Washington at Bothell starting this fall. I am enrolled in the Master of Arts in Cultural Studies program. I will be living in Seattle for the next two years until I obtain my MA degree.
Jason Syms has been accepted into the MBA program at University of Miami.
Nick Steffl (2011) This summer I am a tour guide up in Juneau, Alaska and it has been a blast so far. I've been able to see a lot of new sights and makes some great friends while working up here. I'll be up here until late September, when I'll come back to the northwest for just a bit until I move to Las Vegas with one of my buddies who I've known since freshman year and who is also working with me as a guide here in Alaska. After a few months of work and play down there I plan on moving to Korea to become an English teacher for a year. Buuut we will see how it all goes, taking it all one day at a time.
Nick Sympson (2008) is attending law school at Santa Clara University. He is leaning towards working in criminal law, possibly prosecution. Note from Nick: "Right now I am working with the Northern California Innocence Project. We review, investigate and potentially litigate claims on behalf of prisoners convicted in Northern California who are seeking to advance claims of factual innocence. It is incredibly gratifying. A few weeks ago I went down to LA to watch a hearing where one of our clientswas exonerated for a murder he did not commit after serving 17 years in prison.
It felt like a sort of culmination of all the studying and work I have done and totally scorched any lingering doubt I might have had in my mind about law school."