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.:Resource Guides:Interviews-Elizabeth Jennings.
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Interviews
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Career Path
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What was your first job after college and how did you get it? |
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I worked as a waitress and greenhouse laborer for a while, then got my first "straight job" as a small-town newspaper reporter. My portfolio from freelancing and proofreading helped, but more importantly a friend and mentor recommended me to the
editor. After reporting for a couple of years, I switched tracks and became managing editor of a scientific journal.
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How did you get your current job? |
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A combination of experience and dumb luck. I sent a suggestion to the generic Idealist.org email address, and immediately the executive director wrote back. Ami asked me, along with several other random Idealist users, to comment on a
document he was writing. Apparently he liked how the two of us worked together, and we went back and forth with ideas and edits for a month or so, and I was basically a volunteer editor. During that time he found out about my volunteer work, activism, and life
here in the West, and I learned more about AWB. Out of the blue he asked if I'd like to work for them. At that point we'd never even spoken on the phone. We met a few weeks later, worked out the details, and the rest is history. It's funny -- I always thought I
would have to live in an urban area to do the work I wanted to do, but right now I'm doing the professional and activist work I've always dreamed of, all from the most rural state in the U.S.
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What experiences and/or course work in college best prepared you for this job or influenced your decision to do this work? |
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Courses, professional experience and volunteerism got me to where I am. All of my writing courses helped, as did many of my English and women's studies classes that explored colonialism, multi-ethnic perspectives and the intersections
of identities and oppressions. On-the-job training in journalism and publications editing helped. Going back further, I grew up seeing a lot of classism and racism, and after high school spent time in Israel and the Occupied Territories. Those experiences
eventually led me to volunteering with Amnesty International after college, because the human rights paradigm was what I'd really been searching for to use as a solution to the problems I see in the world. Through Amnesty I found my niche in women's human rights
activism on the local, national and international levels. Amnesty connected me to some amazing mentors, and through AI I've now had six years of training in human rights issues, leadership and advocacy skills. Meanwhile I've gotten involved in other community
volunteering, and working on the board of a domestic violence agency.
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Any regrets? What experiences and/or course work might have better prepared you for this work? |
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More languages! I wish I were multilingual, and it's a goal for me for the future.
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Have you attended graduate school or are you considering graduate school? What degree do you have/would you want and why? Are there any limitations to advancement in your field if you do not have a certain graduate degree? |
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While an undergrad I took several master's-level writing courses, and thought I wanted to go for an MFA in creative writing. Later, while working, I took the survey course for the UW Master of Public Administration Course, which gave
me a basic understanding of public and nonprofit management. But neither of those is my path right now. Currently I'm considering law school, but only if I can get into a school with a strong women's human rights program. I don't care to start for several years
-- I've got too much good stuff going on now. I expect to start my next level of education after I'm 32, and by then I may have a different focus.
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Career Center Resource Guides
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