Major: Anthropology and music
Job: AdWords Account Strategist for Google

My work

I help businesses reach their online advertising goals with Google AdWords, which displays advertisements on search engines and content sites across the Web. That involves both building ad campaigns and analyzing their effectiveness. I'm called an "optimizer"—one of my friends says it sounds like something from Star Trek.

Kenyon connections in job search

I got a lot of help from Stew Peckham, director of the Career Development Office. He pointed me to the Selective Liberal Arts Consortium, a group of 14 top colleges (including Kenyon) that organizes recruiting events in cities around the country, to connect students to employers.

Key Kenyon experience

Ben Locke of the music faculty was one of my primary mentors and inspirations. He helped me realize that I'd be OK if I shed a lot of baggage in terms of doing things that met other people's expectations, that I would end up happier if I figured out what I like and followed that path.

Also, the summer before my senior year I stayed in Gambier to do field research on a local foods project with Kimmarie Murphy of the anthropology faculty. I was taking the life histories of older people, talking specifically about experiences with food and food culture before the time of industrialized farms. It allowed me to step out of myself, to see how my own behavior and beliefs were part of a culture, and to realize how my day-to-day choices about eating have a worldwide impact.

"Music and anthropology didn't seem like the most marketable fields. But I got a lot of help from the Career Development Office. Google was my first job application.

Skills gained at Kenyon that help you perform your job

Kenyon values high performance and hard work, but also passion for what you're doing. I think Google saw me as someone who's versatile and uses different parts of her brain—someone who's intellectually flexible, interested in experiencing new things and being a lifetime learner.

Loving the job

I love the people with whom I work. There's such a drive here to 'do it better'; it's an environment where everybody is constantly trying to improve. It's very much like the study groups I joined to prepare for big music tests at Kenyon; you're doing better for yourself but also for everyone.

Outside of my job

I sing in a church choir. And I've gotten into road-biking. I've met a lot of cool, super-friendly people. We bike mostly in Palo Alto or head toward the Santa Cruz hills.