Category: Other Successful Berklee Alumni

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Choice Quotes: “I have a really interesting role. I have a lot of contact with people who are very successful and understand business in a way I’d like to understand. Some are apprehensive at first, but being able to show my value and become a trusted business advisor is very satisfying.”

“Find as many opportunites to get real on the job experience. Take an internship even if unpaid, just to get experience and connections. That matters most trying to find a full time job out of college. Those EY internships were a lot of work, but without them I don’t know where I’d be.”

“The Berklee courseload we had and all the projects certainly helped me with my current job, learning to prioritize, figuring out ways to be efficient. The business courses were certainly helpful as well. It’s not directly a finance eductaion, but many people at EY have other backgrounds. Diverse backgrounds are celebrated at EY!”

“If you’re interested in a career in data analysis, first make sure it’s for you. It heavily relies on numbers and analysis. If you like to get deep down in the spreadsheet and figure it out, start by taking some courses online.”

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See the full index of successful Berklee alumni.

Graduated in 2021 with a major in Violin Performance.

Position: Associate Agent at the Harry Walker Agency, which arranges appearances by high-profile speakers at various events. The agent works one on one with the sponsors in order to work them through to a contract, including guiding them toward a realistic speaker for their price range then helps with the logistics of booking flights, etc. As an associate agent, Jade helps take as many tasks off her boss’s plate as possible.

Overview: Before going to college, Jade wrestled with whether to study music or communications. When the pandemic hit and everything closed down convined that communications would be a more secure career path. While still in her third year at BoCo, Jade applied and was accepted into the Masters in Corporate Communications program at NorthEastern University Thus, Jade did her final year at BoCo knowing she’s be on a different path after graduating.

During the summer of 2022, Jade worked at a music camp, and through that experience met someone who put her in touch with someone at the Harry Walker agency. After finishing her program in December, 2022, Jade applied to various executive assistant jobs, but would lose to internal candidates. Fortunately, someone in HR thought Jade would make a good associate agent, so she was given an interview and hired into her role.
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You can see Jade’s LinkedIn profile here.
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Choice Quotes: “I like being client facing. As my boss says, ‘People know what a pencil costs, but people don’t know what people cost.’ Being a musician prepared me to go in and speak with people. I enjoy it, you build years of relationships. Poeple come back to you, sometimes to expand. You see people at an event and you can say hi. And sometimes they send a new opportunity your way.”

“My experience at BoCo gave me people skills.. Yes you make friends, but it’s also a professional collaboration. It’s being able to talk about various interests and talk about our projects–the interactions get more creative.”

“The biggest hurdle in all this transition was realizing there’s nothing wrong with leaving (music). If you’re donig it and you’re not 110% into it, there’s always giong to be this doubt. As a kid I was always the big fish. It became part of my identity: I was always convinced that I had to do it. Then I left and it wasn’t a big deal. There’s nothing wrong wtih making the right choice for you.


“If you want to be an agent, treat it the same as music. It won’t happen right away. The corporate world is so huge. There were tens of thousand of people applying for 90 internship spots at WME. I’m still not sure how I got my job! But I told them that anything good comes with hard work and time. People at WME told me they could see my work ethic and realistic expectations.”
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See the full index of successful Berklee/BoCo alumni.

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Choice Quotes: “Fall in love with learning something, that is serving people you care about. That will take you to the stars.”

“I love the freedom to decide my own fate and confront that. There’s a certain honesty and self-acceptance that comes with that. I literally spend every day thinking how I can create technology, how can I create things that improve the lives of overs. . Getting out of Berklee I said I’m not going to be a musician–that’s too limiting–but I’m going to be musical. At the core, I’m a creator!”

“My double major was a heavy workload, but it taught me about time management and different skills.”

“There’s no sense of stabiity yet. You grow and you face bigger challenges.”
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See the full index of successful Berklee alumni.

Graduated in 2021 with a major in Music Business. Principal instrument: drums.

Position: Business Analyst at Fidelity Information Services (“FIS”), a financial technology company with tens of thousands of employees that works with banks, capital markets, and merchants. “Almost everyone has worked with our technology, but hardly anyone knows who we are.” Kevin is on a small team that gathers internal data and formulates it into reports which are then shared with the upper management to assess performance.

Overview: Kevin was attracted to the Music Business major because he felt like what he learned would be widely applicable. When the pandemic hit in 2020, Kevin was stuck at home and his interested in music as a career diminished. In early 2021 he took a coursera course in data analysis. His mother worked at FIS and recommended him for a job. Kevin also applied to music jobs, but this was the one he got. FIS has a special program for recent college grads that involves a lot of training, which Kevin was hired into.
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You can see Kevin’s LinkedIn profile here.

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Choice Quotes: “I’ve always been into data. It stimulates my brain and is fun. And there’s a part of it that gets my creative side going too, like figuring out how to present numbers in a good way, build graphs and charts. I get to be flexible, analytical, and creative.”

“My interviewers at FIS asked how I’d bring what I learned at Berklee to FIS. I replied that narrativizing data has a creative element to that and I get that from my musical side. The interviewers really liked that, and they liked that I was in a different field. That creative side helps me think differently from most folks. Another thing about Berklee that made me a better person overall was studying abroad in Spain–it gave me a bigger view of the world. That’s helpful at a company like FIS that’s super-global. Also, Berklee taught me to be more confident–I’d never thought Berklee would accept me and I auditioned just for fun–playing gigs and in front of other folks built my faith in myself. You need that faith when you totally change careers!”

“If you’re interested in data analysis as a career, then do what I did. Take an online course, even if you’re still at Berklee. Those don’t teach you everything, but they’ll get you started. This background experience helped get my foot in the door.”

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See the full index of successful Berklee alumni.

Graduated in 2016 with a major in Music Business. Principal instrument: cello.

Position: Creative Producer (project manager) at Meta (formerly Facebook). He works in the reality labs division (formerly Occulus) on all design-related things–both virtual reality and brand materials. William manages a team of designers, writing out the specs of what needs to be produced and making sure it’s delivered on time. William works from home, and much of his work is done in VR space.

Overview: While a Berklee student, William saw all that was happening with technology and wanted to get into it. He helped run a conference, “Hacking Arts”, in collaboration with M.I.T.. William’s work with this conference proved invaluable for his career. It led to a couple of internships in NYC after graduation. Then, when he was unemployed in 2017, William reconnected with someone he’d met at the conference, which resulted in him getting hired at Google as a production coordinator on Google’s events and experiences team, based in San Francisco. For a year and a half he’d be going from place to place, building stages, etc. But it was a lot of running around and didn’t feel sustainable. He searched for other oppotunities and was hired in to his current position.

You can see William’s LinkedIn profile here.

Choice Quotes:

“Every day is a new challenge, think creatively, be scrappy, the outcomes can be different. Through tech there’s a lot more possible, different solutions to different things. Working with design is very creative, too.”

“Don’t lose your confidence; continue to think big. We artists are gifted with our craft. You can bring that same thinking to your non-music career. Creative thinking and Berklee are often celebrated in industry!”

“There’s a few folks from an events background. Project management can be managing a band! Make sure you can hone in on what you want and where you want to work. You have to identify the applicable skill sets, then learn and grown what’s missing. I had to go from events to digital to media.”

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See the full index of successful Berklee alumni.

Graduated in 2016 with a major in Performance. Principal instrument: drums.

Position: Business Development Representative (sales) at Building Engines, a large company which handles maintenance contracts for commercial real estate. Working as a BDR, the entry-level sales position, Mario’s job involves reaching out to businesss and attempting to set up a meeting with one of the more senior sales people.

Overview: Mario started going to Berklee while in middle school as part of Berklee’s City Music Program. By the time he graduated, he was feeling burned out on music, and he went to work as a bartender, which definitely helped refine Mario’s people skills. He did this until the pandemic hit in 2020, then figured it was time to find a new career. Mario’s first job was at a thrift store, but it was very stressful work for low pay.

Through a connection, he was put in tough with Building Engines. He was hired as a research associate in their sales department, and did well, but around 8 months in Mario wanted to make more money. He spoke with people across the company and they all recommended he go into sales. Mario spoke with the sales managers and they were convinced he had the needed ambition and gave him a shot.
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You can see Mario’s LinkedIn profile here.

Choice Quotes: “I like the sales role becuase the money is good and I’m not being micromanaged. I also like change–the restaurant industry was feeling monotonous. Also, if I’m having a tough time that day, I’m encouraged to take a break. That freedom is liberating, I can get my work done when and how I want to get it done. I also love that I can go to anyone, not just my manager, and ask for advice and they’ll give it to me.”

“The #1 thing is Berklee taught me using my brain and mouth. Networking! Utilizing who I met and when I met them helped me a lot. I got to meet a lot of people. Having those experiences I got to communicate in ways I wasn’t used to.”

“Noone’s going to do it for you other than yourself. I wish I’d learned sooner to never take a break, never stop. Power through and be your own advocate. Noone’s going to help you. The more independent you are as a musician and businessperson, the better off you’ll be.”

“This year I joined a wedding band. My musical inspiration is coming back. I always wanted to gig and play. The goal is to still gig and tour and make music where I can. Music is still with me and whether it’s playing the same cheesy 20 songs at weddings, at least I’m still playing and I enjoy that.”

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See the full index of successful Berklee alumni.

Graduated in 2016 with a major in Music Production & Engineering. Principal instrument: guitar.

Position: Software Quality Assurance (“QA”) Engineer at EBay, the large platform for online auctions and other purchases. His job involves testing the software on the front end (what the user sees). He’s on a team of 14, with three other QA engineers, ten software developers, and one product manager. Ming’s job mostly involves writing testing automation code in Javascript in order to test new features. He also sometimes goes through debugging the software with a developer.

Overview: After graduation, Ming moved to L.A. with the goal of being an audio engineer for a music label. Four months later, he was hired! First he was a runner, but in two years he had worked his way up to assistant engineer and then engineer! However, Ming started to suspect that this wasn’t the career he wanted after all. Hours were long and undependable, and he seldom saw the sun. He considered pursuing other careers, but wasn’t sure he could affored more education. Then in 2020 the pandemic hit and he was laid off. While the pandemic was terrible for many in the industry, for Ming it was a great stroke of luck! Unemployment insurance and pandemic aid added up to more than he had been earning at the studio. Ming took advantage of this opportunity to learn a new career, though he negotiated part-time employment at that studio while he was in school.

Ming took Computer Science courses at a community college and earned an associate’s degree in computer science, then in early 2022 he did a four-month program with “Codesmith“, a coding “boot camp” which had good career preparation. Ming applied to many, many jobs as he was finishing. One month after it finished, a friend who works at EBay recommended Ming and he was hired into his current position.
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You can see Ming’s LinkedIn profile here.

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Choice Quotes: “It’s the problem-solving factor of QA. The process of something being broken, finding out what’s wrong, bashing your head against the table to figure out the bug, but then you do and you see it fixed–it’s very satisfying. That said, being a web developer is still my career goal.”

“Quality Assurance is very important. Our website going down for even five minutes could mean millions of dollars lost!”

“Those first 2 years, even 5, out of college, try to say yes to a lot of things. It may not be sustainable but that way you can get a lot of experiences and figure out what you like. Once you have figured out what you like, double down on the skill sets you need to succeed in that field.”

“Referrals really help when looking for a job. They mean skpping having to talk to recruiters. Talking to the engineers directly lets you showcase what you can do even if you don’t have experience.”

“One thing that bummed me out while working in music was I couldn’t afford my own music equipment. I’ve bought more in the last 6 months than during my whole time then.”

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See the full index of successful Berklee alumni.