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Spring 2024

Careers

Summer 2017

Careers that really clicked

As she stepped up to the employee store counter to pay her bill, LEGO® specialty products manager Katie Regan’08 pulled out a credit card bearing Washington State University’s famous logo. Jordan Paxton ’04, behind her in line, let out a shout of recognition. “Bumping into Cougars on the East Coast is a big deal,” explains Paxton, a consumer service specialist at LEGO. “It rarely happens, so when you come across a Cougar, you’re instant friends.”

Regan and Paxton soon learned they had more than Cougar pride in common. The two attended WSU at the same time, then both accepted jobs with The Walt Disney … » More …

grape vine illustration
Summer 2017

Hanging a left at wine

The allure of winemaking has attracted a menagerie of professionals to the business. Washington State University’s Viticulture and Enology Program has lured aerospace engineers, Army medics, apparel designers, scientists, and many others to the field. Here, we bring you a few of the stories of those who have changed careers by hanging a left at wine.

After years of dissecting rat brains, Berenice Burdet had had enough.

The Argentinian neuroscientist was untangling stress’s web of physiological effects on the hippocampus. The stress we feel in a crammed subway train, Burdet says, affects our behavior by dampening affect. We become depressed, and activity levels decline. … » More …

New and Noteworthy
Summer 2013

New & noteworthy

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Blazing a Wagon Trail to Oregon: A Weekly Chronicle of the Great Migration of 1843
by Lloyd W. Coffman ’87
Caxton Press-University of Nebraska, 2012

Diaries, letters, and reminiscences of pioneers tell the story of the earliest wagon trains to undertake the six-month trek from Missouri to Oregon in 1843, as they faced bad weather, threatening Indians, and scarce supplies.

 

Career Choices for Veterinarians: Private Practice and Beyond
by Carin A. Smith ’84
Smith Veterinary Consulting, 2011

The opinions and insights of experienced veterinarians offer examples of how veterinary students, current … » More …

Spring 2003

Is the sky still blue in Emerald City?

Now that the economy has stalled, are the Seattle unemployed here to stay, or are they packing the U-Haul?

When I moved to Washington’s west side, I pursued a different career and landscape. When I was laid off last year, I decided to stay put rather than move where the job market held more promise. I thought I was following my heart, but according to Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class (New York: Basic Books, 2002), I was following a trend.

Florida, a Carnegie-Mellon economics professor, theorizes that those in “creative” occupations “drive” the economy, i.e., corporate profits and economic growth … » More …

Winter 2001

Beginning again

…attaining any worthwhile goal is really a matter of taking one small step at a time.

GEOFF GAMBLE, former interim provost at Washington State University and now president of Montana State University, once told me studies show that most people will have three different careers in their lifetimes. During that conversation, he revealed that he was on career number two, since he’d worked in insurance before becoming an academic.

According to a variety of sources, people may change careers as many as seven times during their working life. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports 67 percent of American workers don’t like their jobs, and … » More …

Spring 2006

Cooking is its own reward

Betsy Rogers ’89 had her eureka moment while sitting in a cooking class.

It was 2000, and the Seattle-based public relations specialist had recently lost her job in a downsizing. Instead of jumping back into a new job, she decided to freelance and take her time in deciding what to do next.

“I did like being self-employed, but I didn’t like what I was doing,” she says. What she really enjoyed was food, though. With some extra time on her hands, the Washington State University public relations graduate signed up for a cooking class.

“So I was thinking about what things really get me … » More …

Fall 2002

Paying it forward

Under the right conditions, mentoring will snowball.

One of the simplest pleasures I have is turning on the radio and hearing the voice of Frank Shiers (’77 Communications), a Seattle deejay working the mid-day shift on MIX 92.5. I’ve known Frank since high school, and his influence on me was so profound, it’s the main reason I went to Washington State University.

My family does not have a long history of higher education, and Frank was nearly the only role model I had for showing me the way through a bachelor’s degree. But since then, things have changed for new students at WSU. Recognizing the … » More …