Category: Other Successful Berklee Alumni

Dr. Jenny Martin

 

Listen to the interview (approx. 1 hr, 5 min.) or download it.

 

Graduated in 2006 with a major in Songwriting.  Principal instrument:  voice.

Position:  Licenced Psychotherapist in private practice.  Jenny is one of a half dozen people in the Mindful Path practice in Chicago, but her clients are her own.  She typically sees clients, many of whom are abuse victims or GLBT, for the long term psychotherapy.  As a (very) side job, she teaches a graduate course at Adler University for others working on their PsyD degrees. “Teaching doctoral students is wonderful, and is a great way for me to ‘keep my tools sharp.'”

UPDATE:  (Fall 2016):  Shortly after being interviewed, Jenny left the Mindful Path group practice to found her own private practice:  Gemstone Wellness

Overview:  Coming from a music-themed high school, Jenny majored in psychology at the University of Michigan for two years, but found it unsatisfying at the undergrad level and a good friend convinced her to transfer to Berklee.  She did her last two years at Berklee, but during the first year that same friend withdrew from Berklee and later committed suicide.  Jenny found this personally devastating.

After graduation, Jenny worked briefly at Bug Music in New York, then a friend at Cherry Lane music got her a job there, working in the royalties department, while writing music in her spare time.  Ultimately, Jenny found the work unsatisfying, and felt that opportunities to be a staff-songwriter were drying up, so she left her job and moved home to decide what she wanted to do.  She felt that a career as a psychotherapist would be a fulfilling way to honor her friend and be herself, and in 2009 enrolled in a six-year program at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology, getting her doctorate in 2014 and her professional license in 2015.  A connection she’d met through a post-doc job introduced her to the person putting together the Mindful Path practice, and she decided to work with them.

 

You can see Jenny’s LinkedIn profile here.

 

Choice Quotes:  “There’s nothing more meaningful to me than sitting in a space with someone, being authentic and hear people’s truth and be with them in raw, vulnerable moments.  I get to live with that all day.  People ask if it’s hard to hear suffering, but I feel like we all go through that at some point, so it means a lot to me to be there in those moments.  It feels like I’m home.”

“One of my first placements during grad school was working with women in the Cook Country Jail.  These woman had been through trauma, but I found the power of music to work there–the women were singing, drumming on tables, etc.  I figured i’d see about writing a group song.  It started a whole process for me, diving into research what happens to your brain when you’re creating music–incredible things happen–and I did my doctoral dissertation on that.”

“Studying songwriting at Berklee got me comfortable being vulnerable in front of a group, and connecting to my sense of self.  “Songwriting and Psychotherapy are similar in some ways:  they’re both improvising, and the only way you’re going to do a good job is to LISTEN.”

 

 

See the full index of Successful Berklee Grads.

 

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India Thomson

Listen to the interview (approx. 58 min.) or download it.

Graduated in 2014 with a major in Music Business.  Principal Instrument:  voice.

Position:  Investment Services Analyst at Citigroup in New York.  India works on a team of ten, supporting 150 financial advisors.  India helps with inquiries from customers and financial advisors, places trades, and helps operations.  Her goal is to move up into a role directly evaluating investments.

Overview:  India’s mother is a day-trader, so she was exposed to finance growing up.  By her penultimate year at Berklee, she had decided that she wanted a career in finance.  India moved to New York after graduation, supporting herself by doing social media publicity for a music label while she searched for an internship in finance.  After four months of aggressive searching, she got an unpaid internship, while she studied for and obtained her first financial industry certification (“Series 7” and “Series 63”) which involve lots of studying and a test.

Networking events led to her next job, a financial services sales position, which was paid, but India wanted to move away from sales and into something that paid better than that position.  She got an investment analyst position, which she loved, but after six months the company was having financial problems, so she started looking for another job.  A recruiter from Citigroup led her to her current position.

You can see India’s LinkedIn profile here.

Choice quotes:  “I have this duality:  I have a passion for math and am good at it, but I have a creative side as well.  My finance job also has both  As an analyst, I do a lot of math, using metrics to rate investments based on suitability, rate of return, and so forth.  But I also do creative stuff, such as putting together presentations & reports and talking to people.”

“When you put your resume out there, know that Search Engine Optimization is used by companies on resumes.  Software looks for key words and will filter 1000 resumes online down to 50.  Put the job title and key words from the job position in your resume.”

“You can love music, but don’t ever feel like you’re stuck because music is all you can do….  You can still be happy, find your passions, do stuff you love and have meaningful experiences even if what your ultimate dream doesn’t work out.  What you end up doing can and up being your dream without you even realizing it.”

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Dawn-Marie Dunn

Listen to the interview (approx. 50 min.) or download it.

 

Graduated in 2012 with majors in Electronic Production & Design (EPD) and Professional Music.  Principal Instrument: violin.

Position:  Software QA (Quality Assurance) Engineer at Advanced Practice Strategies (a.k.a. Brightwork Health), which makes tools used by doctors and nurses to help them identify uncommon medical conditions.   Dawn-Marie makes sure that the software specifications are properly described and feasible.  She does both manual testing and writes “scripts” (small programs) to automate some testing to as to ensure that the software works properly under all circumstances.

Overview:  Dawn-Marie started Berklee in 1998 (14 years before graduating), but left in 2001, as she was unsure what she wanted to do afterward.  She worked a lot of retail jobs, then to move back to Boston she got a medical certificate and ultimately worked as an adminsitrative assistant in a hospital’s “quality office” where medical records are kept and sorted through.  Finding that without a Bachelor’s Degree her prospects for career advancement were dim, she returned to Berklee and completed her degree in five semesters.

During her last year, Dawn-Marie interned at Cakewalk, which makes music software.  Shortly after graduating, that internship turned into a full-time job doing QA.  5 months later, as she was not-yet-visibly pregnant with her now-toddler son, Dawn-Marie got laid off.  She realized she needed another job immediately  as no company would want to hire someone who obviously would be going on maternity leave right away; staying in music wasn’t a priority under the circumstances.  Fortunately, one day after she was laid off, her (now former) boss recommended her to a former colleague who had moved to Advanced Practice Strategies which needed a QA person.  Dawn-Marie got the job, in part because of her medical experience.

 

You can see Dawn-Marie’s LinkedIn profile here.  In addition, Dawn-Marie invites anyone seriously considering QA as a career to contact her at  dunn.dawnmarie [at] gmail dot com.

 

Choice quotes:    “As far as I know, QA isn’t taught in schools anywhere.  It’s a combination of being very detail-oriented and picking up the skills on the job.  It’s hard for businesses to find good QA professionals because they need someone who’s very tech savvy, but isn’t a software developer. Developers often want to code and aren’t as detail-oriented as needed. QA is paid maybe 20% less than being a developer–the education isn’t as specialized–but that’s still a very good salary.”

“My company helps doctors and nurses get medical details right, and we’ve heard from clinicians that it helped them saves lives. That means a lot to me and it’s an awesome feeling! ”

“I love learning new medical things and programming all the time and I get to use that knowledge to refine ideas and make a good product.  When I went to Berklee I was considering being a producer because I like to help people who have a great initial idea refine it into something amazing.   That’s essentially what I get to do now.”

 

 

See the full index of Successful Berklee Grads.

 

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Claudia Caliano-Rida (formerly Caliano)

Listen to the interview (in 2 parts.  Total approx 1 hr 45 min.) or download them.

 

Graduated in 2009 with a major in Music Business.  Principal Instrument:  voice.

Position:  Change Management Consultant.  (Update September 2016:  Shortly after the interview Claudia’s good work was recognized in the form of a promotion to Principal Change Management Consultant!) Consultant at NTT Data, a very large (80,000 people worldwide) technology consulting company based in Japan.   A travelling consultant, Claudia helps corporations adapt to new software and processes.  She works with companies to learn about their process and transition, then develops training materials, designs in implements trainings, and trains people.  She spends almost half of her time travelling, and the rest working from home.

Overview:  Claudia is from Switzerland, where she got the equivalent of an Associates Degree and training in Information Technology (IT) and had worked for years for Microsoft doing accounting, sales, and customer support.  Claudia came to Berklee at age 25 to try something new and was a student employee during her time at Berklee.  Post-graduation, she was recommended for a job with a music start up as executive assistant to the president, but she was laid off one week before her visa expired!  For about a year Claudia was unemployed, taking classes just in order to get a student visa, then she got a certificate to teach ESL (English as a Second Language). Claudia did that for a couple of years, but the pay was very low.

Eventually, a friend of a friend who worked at NTT Data recommended her for her current job, as she had good background in both IT and teaching.  Claudia has been at NTT since 2013, and gradually has been working her way up in autonomy, title, and pay.

 

You can see Claudia’s LinkedIn profile here.  In addition, Claudia invites anyone interested in pursuing a job in corporate training to email her at claudiacaliano (at) msn.com .

 

Choice quotes: “I’m a teacher by heart.  My favorite part of a project is the end where I’m in a classroom and helping people learn.  I take something that’s really scary for them–nobody wants change–and help them deal with it and get through it.  I teach people and see that ‘A-ha moment!’ and people say I just made their life better.  It’s extremely rewarding.”

“Why should I work my ass off just to be a poor, mediocre musician?  I’m not as musically talented as many at Berklee.  I’m all about exploiting your strengths, and I’m really good at some things!”

“Be open–you never know who you’re going to meet that can help you get a job.  You should have an excellent 30-second “elevator pitch.”  Also, learn really good interviewing skills.  I got this job because I rocked that interview.”

“Companies are erratic about when they hire consultants, so keep looking and keep sending your resume, even to the same place.  It’s about timing, so be persistent and believe in yourself.  Whatever you do, keep going–all you need is one job.”

 

See the full index of Successful Berklee Grads.

 

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Michael Benson

Listen to the interview (Approx. 55 min.) or download it.

 

Graduated in 2010 with a major in Music Business.  Principal Instrument:  guitar.

 

Position:  Senior Account Manager at Pixability, a start-up which helps companies do online video marketing campaigns.  Michael works with clients to get the specifics on the ad campaigns and results they want, and helps implement it. He supervises three more junior-level account managers, and also works to think up improvements for his own company’s software/interface.

Overview:  While at Berklee, the Music Business Dept. recommended him for an internship at SonicBids, which led to other internships and a job as an account manager when he graduated.  Something over a year later, Michael was brought onto a “start-up” within SonicBids, but found that it had too little structure and he wasn’t doing well, so he started looking for a new job while continuing to work.  Michael felt that “Opportunities within music were limited for someone with my skill set.  I decided to open up my job search and see what’s out there.”  A high-volume job search for several months led to an account manager job at ContentLEAD, which specialized in search engine optimization, though Michael also worked with clients to help them design effective websites.  After a couple of years, a former-colleague who had moved to Pixability recruited Michael for an account manager position there.  Good work & company growth led to a promotion a couple of years later.

 

You can see his LinkedIn profile here.

 

Choice quotes:  “What makes a business setting worthwhile are the people you work with, and do you have the chance to learn and grow?  I enjoy working with tech , and the process of sitting around and brainstorming and envisioning something and then bringing it to fruition.”

“My music education was a real differentiating factor in the job market.  It’s really important to  be a good listener–it helps you deal with clients.  You hear subtleties in their voice–do they have more to tell you?  Negative space plays a role in the dynamic of a conversation–Musicians understand all this.”

He has performed at a couple of friends’ weddings.  “Music is something that never leaves you no matter what you end up doing.  I play every day to my children, as well as with my family and at friends’ weddings.”

Don’t do your resume by yourself–have someone else look it over.  Also find some ones that you really like and use them as a template.  Your resume will be looked at for 30 seconds or less.”

“Listen to that little voice in your head telling you if something is right or not.  I’m happier now that I’m maintaining a work-life balance then in the first few years after college when I was working 60-hour weeks.  I wish I could look my former self in the eye and tell him not to worry too much.  Even if the years after school are really difficult, remember to look up, be thankful, open, honest, and appreciate the moments.  Life is generous.  Don’t fall prey to too much fear.”

 

See the full index of Successful Berklee Grads.

Santiago Sinisterra

Listen to the interview (approx. 1 hr, 14 min.), or download it.

Left Berklee in 2008 just a few credits shy of graduating (Santiago finished up and officially “graduated” in 2010.), with a major in Music Production & Engineering.  Principal instrument:  Voice

Position:  Director of Marketing Strategy at Zooka Creative, a “360” (or “soup-to-nuts”) marketing agency based in San Jose, California.  Santiago and the four people he supervises come up with the crux of each marketing campaign–the target audience, the media to use, etc.

Overview:  Santiago spent his first 6 years after Berklee working in music:  2 years as assistant to a composer in Miami, then after that tapered off 2 years living at home and gigging.  Between his large amount of student debt and the modest income, he realized that a change was necessary.  He visited relatives, and met his now-wife, in Columbia to figure out what next, then went back to work for that composer, who now was doing a start-up making exercise videos.  Teaching himself video production, Santiago worked extremely long hours and made decent money doing everything at this two-person company, at one point moving to California to be with his fiancee.  When it became clear that Santiago’s efforts would not be more than modestly compensated, he looked for work elsewhere.

Hired as a temporary contractor to do videos for Zooka, he got along so well with one of their top customers that the customer, on her own initiative, told the head of Zooka to give Santiago a job.  Santiago soon found his job was more customer-relations and design than video, so he transitioned into account management.  Hard work led to a promotion a couple of years later when his supervisor left the company.

 

You can see Santiago’s LinkedIn profile here.

 

Choice quotes:  “I love that marketing helps me express my need to create.  All marketing campaigns really are akin to production in music–logistics, feel, making sure you’re speaking to the audience the way that sort of audience want to be spoken to.  Marketing also has allowed me to make a decent living while doing it.”

“I don’t recommend working 18-hour days, as I did working with the exercise video start-up, but the ethos of ‘I’m going to work my ass off and do it right’ paid large dividends in my current job.”

“Music helped me go into marketing.  It’s an amazing focal point to study becuase it gives your mind such malleability.  My education is more valuable than that of most of my peers.  Most folks just learned about things passively, but while in school, I MADE stuff!”

“People say don’t be afraid to fail, but more importantly, don’t be afraid to know that the answers may NOT be inside your head.  You were fearless to chosoe music as a career, be equally fearless in getting the help you need.”

 

See the full index of Successful Berklee Grads.

 

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Kyle Billings

Listen to the interview (approx. 50 min.) or download it.

 

Graduated in 2014 with a major in Music Business.  Principal Instrument:  guitar.

Position:  Product designer.  Currently working independently in the San Francisco area as a freelance contractor for multiple companies including POWr, financial, and biotech.

Overview:  Early in his last year as a Berklee student, Kyle started to go to meetings hosted by intelligent.ly Boston, a community for people involved in high-tech startups.  Between getting to know the people and some experience designing websites for other Berklee students, Kyle got a part-time  job building out a website for a company in Rhode Island “Fortunately my job was remote. I’d go there every Wednesday and get my weekly assignment.  I’d spend much of the week frantically looking at Code Academy and Stack Overflow to teach myself how to do what I was supposed to do.”
Upon graduation, Kyle moved to San Francisco for a promised job  which fell through.  However, Kyle immediately reached out a person from that Rhode Island company who was very well-connected.  He emailed his entire network, putting in the good word for Kyle.  Kyle immediately got 8 interviews in S.F. alone, one of which led to a job as as web designer with Gone.   Shortly after starting there, Kyle went beyond the parameters of his official job to suggest and help implement a major overhaul of their user interface, which led to their revenue more-than-doubling!  This got Kyle a promotion to Director of Product Design.  However, much of Gone was based on Argentina, and Kyle wanted to work with people more personally, so after around a year and a half he left to do contract work with local companies.

 

You can see Kyle’s LinkedIn profile here.

Choice quotes:  “Everyone at a company thinks in their own siloed ways:  marketers, founders, developers. etc.  My role is to take all the work & constraints that everyone has and mash them all together into a one package  that looks good, is branded, feels good to use, makes money, and meets business move forward.    I work with everyone’s motivations to put something together than everyone can be proud of.”

“I love how varied my job it.  I can do something that’s both technical but also human, personable, empathetic.  It’s valuable for me to learn as much as I can.  I do things that I enjoy and it’s also valuable for my position–I do a better job when I talk to people.  I do well at a job that’s so ME!”

“All these things I learned at Berklee in the context in music stayed with me and I can surprise people with my ability to be empathetic and big picture but also detail-oriented–which is exactly what music requires!”

“When I first started working in this field, I had ‘impostor syndrome’ initially and doubted myself, thinking I was getting away with faking it and didn’t know what I was doing.  It took a while to realize I was doing my job well.  One thing I wish Berklee would do is to get us to trust ourselves and know that we’ll do just fine in industries beyond music.”

 

See the full index of Successful Berklee Grads.

Andy Zhang

Listen to the interview (approx. 1 hr 19 min) or download it.

Graduated in 2006 with a major in Music Business.  Principal Instrument:  bass.

Position:  Research Engineer for Linekong, a company that builds gaming apps.  Andy is a “full stack” programmer, dealing with all aspects of the software, and specializing on the chatbot function.  He also does math and algorithms, and on his own time meets weekly with others to explore deep learning by machines and artificial intelligence.

 

Overview:  Andy’s plan was to become an entertainment lawyer.  He finished Berklee in two years, spent two years travelling and temping, then went to law school.  Midway through law school he realized that he disliked the rigid culture and lack of creativity that being a lawyer entailed, nor did “prestige professions,” such as management consultant, have any appeal.  Andy finished his law degree, but decided to move home and figure out what sort of career really would make him happy.  Andy started going to meetups of people in tech startups, while using google to teach himself computer programming and building a dating app and volunteering with an angel investor.  He ended up going to Cincinnati to work at a high-tech “incubator” for his own company that was building a new dating app, but failed to attract additional investment and ran out of money.  Using the last bit of the money to move to San Francisco, Andy started a frenetic job search.  Six weeks later, he had a job “at the bottom of the totem pole” doing customer support, but his boss let him do his own programming projects as well.  After being there for half a year, Andy had learned all he had to know, and with minimal effort got his first job as a software engineer.  He has switched jobs since then, following his boss to different companies.

 

You can see Andy’s LinkedIn profile here.

 

Choice Quotes: “I love the work-style and lifestyle of being in high tech.  The workplace is very informal, relaxed, and we have lots of freedom.  The lifestyle features decent hours, and I don’t take the stresses of work home unless I want to.   I also like that there’s as much intellectual challenge as I seek–there are always new things to learn and apply!”

“I always liked the ‘structured creativity’ of music.  Professional services such as being in law lose that, as they consider any deviation bad.  But high tech has it–deviation could be bad, but it also could be brilliant!”

“Interviews are tougher if you don’t have a Computer Science degree or a lot of experience–I was grilled hard.  So I spent a ton of time preparing for each interview.”

“While I could be anti-social, Berklee’s ensembles and group projects taught me how to get along and work with people of all different backgrounds and skill levels.  Not working well with people is a common impediment for engineers, but thanks to Berklee it’s not one I suffer from.”

 

 

See the full index of Successful Berklee Grads.

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Mark Schafer

Listen to the interview (approx. 1 hr 9 min) or download it.

 

Graduated in 2009 with a degree is Music Business.  Principal Instrument: guitar.

Position:  CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software administrator and sales analyst at Yesware, Inc.  Mark customizes the SalesForce software platform to assist salespeople, which includes writing computer code.  Roughly 1/4 of his job involves an analyst role, looking at sales data and putting together reports.

In his spare time, Mark stays involved with music as a volunteer by co-running SOFAR Boston.

 

Overview:  As his final-semester internship was about to end, the Music Business Dept. recommended Mark for a sales job with Sonicbids.  Mark interviewed there, and everyone agreed he’d do better in a customer support role.  Sometime later, his friend who managed the SalesForce software left the company and recommended Mark as his replacement.  By early 2012, Sonicbids was feeling financially shaky, so Mark searched online for new jobs, mostly not involving music, and landed one at Brightcove as the SalesForce administrator and sales analyst.  In the summer of 2014 a former colleague who had left Brightcove to work at Yesware took Mark out to lunch and suggested that he work at Yesware, doing similar stuff, which Mark was happy to do.

 

You can see Mark’s LinkedIn profile here.

 

Choice quotes:  “My job is basically learning how things work in detail and then designing my own systems to handle all these subtleties.  Lots of problem solving:  they tell me a problem, and I get to be creative and figure out a solution, the build & support it.”

“The challenge with collecting data on sales is it’s a very human process.  I need to design something that’s easy to use but very tailored to the company’s process, so people know what do.  You want the software to be set up to where sales people can look at a lead and know right away what’s going on and what needs to happen next.”

“Looking for my next job from Sonicbids, I wanted to stay in Boston, but being in music wasn’t a priority.  My day-to-day job at Sonicbids really had nothing directly to do with music anyway.”

“Do as much as possible and don’t wait for the perfect thing to come along. Even if that first job isn’t what you wanted to do, you’ll learn a lot and a lot about what you do & don’t like and may even discover something you really like.”

“At Berklee I figured out how much an analytical person I am and how much I love digging into details…I had the best time at Berklee, it was such a positive experience and such a crazy creative int’l community.  I don’t regret for a second having gone there.”

 

See the full index of Successful Berklee Grads.

Priya Prins

Listen to the interview (approx. 49 min.) or download it.

 

Graduated in 2008 with a degree in Music Production and Engineering.  Principal Instrument:  Voice.

Position:  Production Assistant for the Costume Designer at Marvel Studios.   Priya deals with “digital assets”  — computer images of what the costume will look like.  Priya does admin/communications-work to get the right custom materials for the costumes.  And fetches lunches and does whatever the lead costumer asks her to do.  Priya works in (non-union) contract-based positions, so switches exact job descriptions and even employers on a semi-regular basis.

Priya also has a side job as an Interior Designer (self-employed).

 

Overview:  After graduation, Priya moved to L.A. and worked as a singer for Interscope Records, working some side jobs (dog-walker, personal assistant) to make ends meet.  By 2012, she was unhappy with her situation–the odd hours, the difficulty getting paid–and decided to switch careers while staying in L.A. and continuing to work.  After exploring options, she enrolled at FIDM ( Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising ) to get her Associates Degree (AA) in Visual Communications.  She did several interesting internships during her year-long program, discovering what she did and did not like to do.  Just after graduating in 2015, Priya did the flowers from a friend’s wedding, and a costume designer, a wedding guest, was impressed.  She contacted Priya several days later and offered Priya her first production assistant job!  Hard, high quality work there has led to other opportunities in the industry.

You can see Priya’s LinkedIn profile here.

 

Choice Quotes:  “I like being on my toes and how different each day is from the previous.  I like making things and watching these costumes being built is really exciting!”

“Most classmates at FIDM were 17 or 18, and I was there as a 27-year-old. At first I was embarrassed, but I actually found it to be a huge asset, because I had life experience and to be a successful artist you have to really know yourself–something a lot of younger folks have trouble with.”

“Whatever you’re doing, work really hard and do an amazing job.  You never know who’s watching!  Show people you can pay attention to the little things and they’ll trust you not to mess up big things.”

“If you’re unhappy, you need to change things–they’re not going to change on their own!   Take every opportunity & side job you can.”

 

 

See the full index of Successful Berklee Grads.

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