2019 LMC graduate, Cassidy Reese, has recently finished her first year working as a technical communications specialist as a Georgia Tech staff member. For Cassidy, balancing a year of transition with a year of unprecedented challenges is no easy feat.
Exactly one year ago, alumna Cassidy Reese began her post-graduate career within Georgia Tech. After moving to Atlanta from her hometown of Marietta, GA, Cassidy graduated in December 2019 with a BS in Literature, Media, and Communication (LMC), a minor in Spanish, and a certificate in Social and Personality Psychology. She was then hired as a Technical Communications Specialist for the Tech Applications Group (TAG), an app development team that designs, builds, and maintains custom online applications for Georgia Tech. In the following interview, Cassidy goes into detail about how her Georgia Tech degree has prepared her for the jumpstart of her career.
Since becoming a full-time employee at Tech, what have been your main tasks and accomplishments?
My role on the TAG team involves creating and managing the documentation and user training for our apps and functioning as a project manager for the developers. I help design new features for the apps with the users based on what they want or need, write up those feature requirements for the developers, and test to make sure that what the developers build matches those requirements. In the first year on the job I've created written documentation for two of our three main apps and begun to explore multimedia documentation for one of our biggest apps, PROMOTE. Very recently, our team took over the MyTest COVID Surveillance Testing app for Georgia Tech, so I've also gotten the chance to lead our team through some big development projects on that. Getting to work on that app has been exciting, and I feel grateful for the opportunity to use my skills and role to help fight COVID-19 in some small way.
How was your transition into post-grad life affected by a year like 2020?
2020 was chaotic, but despite all the craziness, I had a great year. I feel very lucky to have been hired just a few months before the pandemic hit when jobs became much harder to secure. Keeping that job, even though I was such a recent hire, has also been a huge blessing. I worked in the office for about two months before we were sent home to work remotely, so I spent about 80% of my first year in my first full-time job doing it from home. However, having just been a student, I was already used to doing a lot of homework at home, so that transition was smooth for me. Our team has really gotten in the rhythm of working from home now and it's turned out to be a very productive year for us, even amongst the uncertainty of 2020.
How has Tech prepared you for current position & the rest of your career?
As an LMC student at Georgia Tech, I was very used to being the liberal arts person that stuck out like a sore thumb in a crowd of technical people. While I myself am not super technical, being surrounded by technical people in college helped me learn how to communicate with them. My job now is essentially playing the "translator" between non-technical users and technical developers, so my experience as a student at Tech prepared me well in that regard. The technical spin on my degree that I got in Georgia Tech's LMC program also helped shape those translating skills, something I likely wouldn’t have gotten in a traditional English or communications degree at another university. I'm still exploring different ideas for the rest of my career, but my experience as a student and staff member at Georgia Tech has encouraged me to keep my mind open and explore opportunities that wouldn't necessarily be the obvious choice. As a high-school student who was interested in communications, a technical school like Georgia Tech wasn't the first place that came to mind, but it was a great fit for me. Similarly, a job on an app development team wasn't the first job that came to mind, but it's also been a great fit for me. I'm very grateful for these experiences that may not have come to be if Georgia Tech hadn't been a part of my story.
What are you hobbies and interests outside of the normal 9 to 5?
Almost all of my hobbies and interests seem to be communications-related, funnily enough. I like to read and journal. I serve as a head worship leader in my local church regularly, singing and music are definitely a passion of mine. I'm also in the process of starting a podcast called The Simple Christian Living Podcast. I like to bake as well—that’s the most scientific hobby I have
What are your goals for 2021 and into the future?
This is a big question! My plans for 2021 right now involve what I've been doing, continuing in my job and trying to stay safe! I really enjoy my position with TAG and hope to keep doing that for the foreseeable future. The role has given me opportunities to grow and lead people even in my first year of employment right out of school, so I'd love to continue down that path.
Is there any advice you would give to up-and-coming graduates?
Don't pigeonhole yourself into one specific type of job or industry just because it's the obvious choice for your degree or because that's the only picture you've had in mind for a while. That pigeonhole could be an obstacle to your own success. As you're figuring out what's next for you after graduation, allow yourself to think outside the box and explore opportunities that are less obvious and less comfortable, because that's where personal growth really happens.