Category: Other Successful Berklee Alumni

Ama Atobrah

Listen to the interview (approximately 53 min), or download it.

Graduated in 2010 with a major in Electronic Production & Design (EPD).  Principal Instrument:  Voice

Position:  Front Desk Coordinator at Appian Corporation.  Ama answers the phones, greets people as they enter, helps mail packages, helps at trade shows, and keeps the company kitchen well-stocked.

Overview:  Ama spent her first two years after graduating in a band and gigging.  Eventually the band broke up and she felt the need to make more money.  She started as a waitress in various places, but found that she preferred to be the hostess who greets people as they enter.  Some months later, a friend who works as a hair stylist at a PR Partners Hair Salon in Oakton, VA suggested that Ama would be a good fit for the receptionist, as there was a job opening.  The money and hours were better, so Ama took the job.  After a while, Ama resumed her job search for something better, primarily by using Indeed.  Many, many applications and interviews, and nearly a year later (during which time she went back to restaurant hostessing), Ama got the job at Appian Corportation.

You can see her LinkedIn profile here.

Choice Quotes:  “I feel like the office wife. I  try to know everybody. I feel like everyone’s best friend.  If they need to book a conference room or ship something, I help them.  If they want to vent, I keep secrets.”

“I do well by being myself and being really excited about what Appian is about and wanting to learn more.”

 

“Base your next career move off of something you did well.  Ask yourself, ‘What’s close to something that I do?’  Are you a charismatic performer?  Businesspeople are just a different kind of audience.”

 

 

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Jack Goodall

Listen to the interview (Approximately 1 hour) or download it.

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

Position:  Marketing Manager at Starr Hill Brewery, a craft brewery located in Virginia.  Jack has sole responsibility for events, branding, website, promotional videos, packaging, and the like.

Overview:  A fan of craft beer since his days working at the Sunset Bar in Alston while at Berklee, Jack went straight from Berklee into Suffolk University to get his MBA through the accelerated MBA program Suffolk has with Berklee.  After graduating in 2010, Jack moved to Chicago to be with his now-wife, who was in medical school.  Jack got a marketing job at Wavemachine Labs, a tiny music software company, but after a year decided to leave and broaden his job search because of low pay and limited opportunity for advancement.  He got a marketing job with the Chicago YMCA, working for several years and being promoted to marketing manager.  In 2014, his then-fiancee finished medical school and got a job in Virginia, so he again moved.  He found a communications job at the University of Virginia, but found it had too few opportunities to be creative or innovative, so started looking for a new job (while working).  While planning a fun visit to the Starr Hill brewery, his wife noticed that they were looking for a marketing director!  Jack applied and got the job.

You can see Jack’s LinkedIn profile here.

Choice Quotes:   “One thing I learned is to be a lot more upfront with what I wanted with a position rather than just taking what I could get.  It’s great (to have a job) immediately, but down the road wha does that mean? (You’re going to be unhappy and a bad fit for your position.)  People are often afraid to ask those questions, not wanting to seem too abrasive, but there are ways to do it…  Speaking as someone who has hired people, it’s in the company’s best interest for a prospective employee to be up for what’s coming if they take the job.”

“You have to find what YOU do really well.  You need to be able to verbalize what you have to offer to a company.  For me it was project management experience and a hodgepodge of marketing roles.”

“The brewery had strategic partnerships with many bands and events, and it gets us tickets.  Since moving to Charlottesville I haven’t had to pay to see live music.”

 

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Jesse Reese

Listen to the interview (in two parts.  Total 55 minutes) or download part 1 and download part 2.

Graduated in 2008 with a major in Music Business.  Principal instrument:  guitar.

Position:  Senior Software Engineer at TVGla.  Jesse is a “full stack” developer, handling both “front end” (what the customer sees) and “back end” (the engine underneath) web programming.

Overview:  After graduation, Jesse did an unpaid internship with a label in Nashville where he tweaked and built websites.  He started picking up freelance jobs building websites, for fairly little money but he learned a lot.  He decided that he wanted to pursue a career in programmers.  Starting at the bottom (“Geek Squad”) computer repair, Jesse read many books to teach himself how to program.  Finally in 2012 he moved to L.A. for more opportunities and over the course of one year and a few jobs his annual salary went from the low 30s to the mid 90s!  Jesse career has continued to progress, with him not staying at any one place very long.  “With software engineering, 2 years is pretty much the max you’re in one place.  After that, stuff is built and you’re just spinning your wheels–there’s nothing else to learn.  If you don’t learn new stuff constantly, you get left behind.”

You can see Jesse’s LinkedIn Profile here.

Choice Quotes:  “It blew my mind how much software engineers are needed, and how easy it is to get a job, once you hit a certain level of experience.  There are a lot of opportunities, and recruiters contact you.  It’s like they’re a car salesperson and you’re the car.”

“Don’t get complacent–stay hungry and keep pushing!…I became senior-level through knowledge, not years.”

“Whatever it is you want to do–set your ego aside and go learn it and do it!  I decided that I’d do nothing that didn’t get me toward my ultimate career goal (being a software engineer)–I didn’t go work retail or whatever. ”

 

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Anna Eliopoulos

Listen to the interview (approximately 44 minutes) or download it.

Graduated in 2008 with a double major in Music Production and Engineering (MP&E) and Performance.  Principal Instrument:  voice.

Positions:  “Audio News Gatherer” (basically a combination editor, scriptwriter, and in-house journalist)  at Fox News Radio.  Also, Anna works part time at Greek public radio station Cosmos, both an engineer and with her own biweekly hour-long program doing mostly lifestyle interviews and some music.

Overview:  Anna graduated from Berklee wanting to work in a music studio.  She had toured studios several months before graduating, and this led to a job offer (effectively a paid internship) shortly after graduation.  For almost 5 years Anna worked in studios, as the assistant to an engineer, and as the office/business manager.  Meanwhile, in 2010 she auditioned for a Greek-American reality show.  She didn’t get the part, but someone else there overheard her describe her background and offered her a part-time job on the spot as an engineer for Cosmos radio.  Soon she had her own radio program as well, though it’s a small station and would be a part-time job.  By 2013, Anna felt bored and wasn’t learning anything in her studio (office) work, and decided that she wanted a career in radio.  A friend who also works part-time at Cosmos has a day job at Fox News (TV), and asked on Anna’s behalf about openings in their radio dept, and recommended Anna for the job, which–combined with her experience at Cosmos–got her an interview and, ultimately, the position.

You can see Anna’s LinkedIn Profile here.

Choice Quotes:  “Radio is very much immediate and takes its direction from the audience.  You have the ability to connect at a moment’s notice.   People call into your station, ask questions, give their opinion on the music etc.   People still want to feel they’re part of a larger conversation.”

“The Berklee grads I’ve seen who have been successful–in and out of music–didn’t ignore opportunities that might not have been in their life’s plan, but were just as interesting.”

“Just getting into and making it through Berklee shows you’re really focused about something.  Berklee is very intense, and to make it through you have to be ‘on top of her game.’  That same focus and energy needed for Berklee is crucial for so many aspects of life.”

 

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Troy Church

Listen to the interview (Approximately 1 hr, 13 min) or download it.

Graduated in 2013 with a major in Music Business.  Principal instrument:  voice.

Position:  Web developer at NKP Medical   Troy is one of several “front-end web developers” who codes websites to meet design specifications, including being optimized for search engines.  NKP Medical specializes in marketing and websites for plastic surgeons.

Overview:  Troy enjoyed the two website building classes he took at Berklee.  Upon graduation Troy needed a job ASAP.  His computer skills weren’t robust enough, and “I suspected it wouldn’t be in music,” so he applied broadly through craigslist and Linkedin.  and got a job selling insurance, which lasted about 8 months.  A former work friend, and an old college friend got him two othersales jobs which each lasted about that long, but Troy didn’t really enjoy sales.  He figured web development would be a good career path, so during those two years he built websites for friends for a nominal fee to build up his portfolio while spending many evenings and weekends taking (mostly free) online classes.  (Troy got a lot out of the (free) classes he took with Code School and his (paid) experience with Thinkful.)  By the summer of 2015, Troy felt his skills were good enough. He couldn’t find a job in NYC where he was living, but he also applied to jobs in L.A., and did some phone/Scype interviews and the third one, at NKP Medical, led to his current job (and move to L.A.)

You can see Troy’s LinkedIn Profile here.

Choice Quotes:  “There’s something that happens when I get into a groove.  I can zone out, listen to podcasts or music.  I get into a state of “flow” where time seems to not exist. You forget everything but the problem at hand, and it’s really enjoyable. ”

“It was hard.  Lots of Friday nights up until 3am trying to solve a coding program.  Lots of summer weekends indoors finding everything to keep myself in that seat by my computer.  Just doing whatever it took to keep learning until it was going to pay off.”

Berklee’s approach to composing/arranging was very helpful to my career, as it taught me to start with a clean slate and write piece by piece.  Web programming feels to me very similar to writing counterpoint:  lots of structured rules, but allowing for a bit of creativity within that structure.”

 

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Chelsea McKinney

Listen to the interview (around 40 minutes) or download it.

Graduated in 2013 with a major in Music Production and Engineering (MP&E).  Principal instrument:  Piano.

Position:  Floor manager at Aventura, a 250-seat tapas restaurant in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Overview:  Chelsea got her first restaurant job during her first year at Berklee.  She initially bused tables, then was promoted to host and then server.  She worked a combination of host and server jobs in Boston, ultimately at Uni (at the time a paired restaurant “Cleo and Uni”) before moving to Ann Arbor to be with her boyfriend a year after graduation.  One month of job-hunting later, they went out to a nice restaurant on a “date.”  Chelsea asked if they had any jobs, and offered herself as a manager.  They recommended her to interview with Aventura, their sister-restaurant.

You can see her LinkedIn Profile here.

Choice Quotes:  “I figured out that what I wanted to do was not so much a thing but a skill set:  working with people.  I found a job where I get to do what I wanted to do.”

“I asked my previous managers to look over my resume before I left Boston. They are older than me and have more experience and know things I don’t.  One of them said, ‘Don’t put ‘host’.  Just put ‘functional floor manager.”  That was a key thing that led to me getting this job.”

“Producing prepared me for restaurant management.  I had to be in charge:.  I learned how to figure out logistics, work with people, communicate our visions to each other, get it all right, deal with unexpected ugly surprises, and get emotional artists to put their issues aside and focus on their work.”

 

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Kyle Batter

Listen to the conversation (approx. 42 minutes) or download it.

Graduated in 2005 with a double-major in Composition and Film Scoring.  Principal Instrument:  Electric Bass, though his true love was the piano.

Position:  (Associate) Corporate Attorney at Hueston Hennigan LLP.

Overview:  After graduation, Kyle want to L.A. where he had a successful 6-year run working in entertainment industry, working as a composer, sound editor, and similar roles.  However, this career involves short-term projects and he didn’t enjoy the constant need to look for work.  Finding himself married and a father, he wanted a career which was more stable would provide better long-term security.  Being a lawyer met his criteria, so he took a LSAT-prep course and got into USC Gould Law School.  He was in the top 10% of his class in that first year, so got job offers from two law firms–it’s common for top law students to get job offers when they still have two years of law school remaining!  He chose to work at Irell and Manella after graduation, as they had a good work-life balance.  After less than a year a year, two senior partners, Hueston and Hennigan, left to form their own company, and  took 40 others (about 1/6 of the firm), including Kyle, with them.

You can view Kyle’s LinkedIn profile here.

Choice Quotes: “Berklee helped create me as a person, which contributed to my future success.  Being there and loving it and digging in deeply to everything I was doing all the time instilled in me a certain diligence and responsibility which, carried over to my work today.”

“The misunderstanding about attorneys is that we spend all our time in court.  Probably 5% of our time is spent in court.  The other 95% is spent in the office researching, writing, and communicating.”

“If you’re ready to move on from the music industry, search within yourself–what other areas are you interested in?  Remember you can get a degree in anything and still be very active in music.  It’s not like any part of that experience will ever go away.”

 

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Michael Hazani

Listen to the interview (around 90 minutes), or download it.

 

Graduated in 2010 with a major in Songwriting.  Principal Instrument:  Guitar

Position:  Freelance web developer.  He works primarily as a contractor for Rift Solutions.

Overview:  Michael spend four years in NYC trying to make it as a songwriter, and doing internships at a studio and a music publishing firm.  He concluded that he couldn’t make a good living in either the short or long term.  As a transition, he formed a band and did a brief tour, building their website and some 3-D interactive components to go with the music, and enjoyed that.  Michael then moved to Seattle to be with his girlfriend.   “A lot of my friends are in high tech, and I don’t hear them complaining about how hard it is to make ends meet, how it’s about who you know when looking for work. (etc)”  So in late 2014 he decided to learn website programming, taking many free online courses and getting an almost-free “nanodegree” from Udacyty.  Within two weeks of getting his degree, Rift Solutions found his profile online and contacted him with work, as they needed something in his niche field done, and as he had done good work the amount of work & responsibility he is given has increased.

You can view his LinkedIn profile here.

Choice quotes:  “That’s a big difference from the music industry.  There’s so much thirst for programmers and web developers sot you get reached out to a lot.  A lot moe than Tech is just a whole other paradigm of supply and demand.”

” “One advantage of (independent contracting) is I can be anywhere. I recently toured to play music and made good money on the tour by doing my website work.”

 

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Adam Baliban

Listen to the interview (approx. 38 minutes) or download it.

Graduated in 2005, with a major in Music Business.  Primary Instrument:  Drums.

Position:   Senior Digital Marketing Strategist at Cooper Katz.  Adam works for this Public Relations firm to build the social media side of their business.

Overview:  After graduation, Adam moved to New York City, where he worked as a temp for two years, including at multiple music labels, but nothing led to a permanent job.  Eventually he used craigslist or a similar service to find a job at a music-marketing startup, where he worked for long hours & low pay, focusing on social media (MySpace at the time), for about 18 months until that company failed.  From there, Adam decided that he liked marketing and social media, but he wasn’t wedded to music, so he sought non-music jobs doing that.  He worked for the Kaplan Thayer Group and Nautica, as well as freelance, before getting his current job.

You can see his LinkedIn profile here.

Choice Quotes:  “Back in the early days of social media, there were no rules–all you knew was it had to be cool.  Berklee gave me a good sense of what’s good vs. what’s ‘luck of the draw.'”

“If you got into advertising you can’t expect to be at one company for a long time and get paid what you deserve.  You have to bounce around.  Yeah it sucks, but you will get paid much more.”

“Accept the fact that the first couple of years are going to be a bitch–that’s just part of the game.  You won’t have lots of contacts ready to hook you up with a job.  But you’ll come out of it OK and you’ll be better off for it.”

“Network as much as you can–learn to ‘perform’ and promote yourself in the business world like you promoted your band.”

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Katie Amaral

Listen to the interview (about 48 minutes) or download it.

Graduated in 2009 with a double-major in Electronic Production & Design (then called “Music Synthesis”) and Music Business.  Principal instrument:  guitar.

Position:  Computer System Administrator at The Broad Institute, a large institution doing medical research.  Katie, one of 80 people in the Information Technology (IT) Department, writes computer scripts, develops their website, and keeps the computer systems running.

Overview:  In her first year at Berklee, Katie got a work-study job doing tech support at Berklee’s computer lab, which she did for the rest of her time at Berklee.  Her Music Business internship at Sonivox led directly to a job there doing customer support, quality assurance (QA), and marketing, albeit at a modest salary.   After a bit over a year, she was feeling under-challenged and wanted something more technical so she found online, applied for, and got a job with Aerva, a start-up that did digital signage, again doing customer support and some of everything.  After a year of very long hours and low pay she joined the family computer business, The Amaral Group, where she set up computer systems & software at other businesses (mostly in the Greater Boston area).  She worked there for 5 years, the last two of which involved her going to Boston University to get her Masters in Computer Information Systems.  A consulting job at the Broad Institute led to her being hired there full-time in early 2015.

You can see her LinkedIn Profile here.

Choice Quotes:  “Just being in an innovative environment surrounded by really smart people is really motivating.  I’m excited to do what I do!”

“Always tailor your resume to each job you’re applying for!  You can make yourself look like a good fit.”

“Figure out what you want to do/what would you be happy doing and will help you pay the bills.  Then just work hard at it.  Don’t be limited by what you think you’re qualified for.  Also, there are so many resources online, such as Code Academy, where you can learn job skills for free!”

 

 

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