Graduated from Berklee Online in 2020 with a major in Professional Studies. Principal instrument: Guitar.
Position: Quality Analyst: Trust & Safety at TikTok, the popular short-form video app. James has three responsibilities that each take up roughly equal time: looking the the work of content moderators to ensure they’re doing their jobs correctly, analyzing data, and reporting his findings.
Overview: James came to “brick-and-mortar” Berklee in 2009, but he left after two years, eager to get out and tour. He had some rough years, but by 2014 he has living in Nashville and playing base and touring with a guy who was doing extremely experimental music. By 2018 this was winding down. James had to take a job in a restaurant to make ends meet, meanwhile, that experience had made him lose interest in more conventional music gigs. James decided he needed a decent day job, and that meant completing his degree.
James was able to stay in Nashville and complete his degree on Berklee Online while he made money filing papers in a law office. He finished his Berklee Online degree just as the pandemic hit and started looking for jobs. Pretty quickly James was hired by Tiktok in a contract position as a content moderator, but his high quality work and diligence led to a conversion to salaried employee and a promotion into his current position within six months.
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You can see James’s LinkedIn profile here.
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Choice Quotes: ” I really love Tiktok! I love the people I work with and what I do. As to the work itself, it’s never exactly the same thing twice. There’s room for play, thinking, and trying to figure out why things are happening the way they are. That makes my job a refreshing experience every day.”
“When I was first at Berklee, I avoided non-music classes. But you really want to be a full person–folks who go for more traditional degrees get to do that more. I couldn’t do my job today if it weren’t for the Berklee Online math class.”
“Seek outsized responsibilities for your role. What’s been exciting for me at Tiktok is the same as what excited me while touring. Back then I’d never toured before, played a somewhat unfamiliar instrument in a brand new genre. Responsibility is an opportunity to learn and grow. Don’t just frame yourself as able to do what you’re already doing. People or companies, if they buy in that you’re capable, will give you opportunities to do more. I’ve gotten the greatest return on my investment at those jobs where I had to stretch myself.”
“After I got the job at TikTok they required a photo of my diploma. I was like, ‘Wow, thanks to Berklee Online I finally have this’! In general, music is a language and in many ways your brain starts to work in terms of communicating with other people, what makes people tick/what are their internal systems/talents? In my wife’s school, computer programming is part of the language dept. Music should be too.”
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