Category: Other Successful Berklee Alumni

Graduated in 2019 with a major in Music Business. Principal instrument: voice.

Position: Relationship Manager at Gilbert & Cook, a modest-size wealth management company in Des Moines, Iowa. Relationship Manager is the entry-level position on the way to Financial Advisor. A lot of the job involves meeting with clients to get their data and desires, then meeting with Financial Advisors and helping make sure interactions go smoothly. Meanwhile, she’s getting her financial certifications.

Overview: Ananya and her boyfriend–now husband–moved to L.A. after graduation. She got a job at a professional audio equipment distributor and loved it, then lost it when the pandemic hit. With her boyfriend also unemployed, the least bad option was to move in with his parents in Iowa. Ananya’s parents introduced her to a family friend in India whose job involved helping wealthy Indians purchase American real estate, and Ananya worked for him for a year and a half. She enjoyed this field, but her work was mostly on the back end. She wanted a more client-facing role and started applying for other jobs. She found her current position advertised on LinkedIn, applied, and was hired into it.

.

You can see Ananya’s LinkedIn profile here.

.

Choice Quotes: “I really enjoy working with people and in a very intimate sort of way–you get to know them, their wishes and what they want as their legacy. It’s very sensitive topics. I enjoy helping people through certain stages of their lives. This is something we’re not really taught in school. So it’s a kind of job where you’re working in the best interest of the client.”

“Berklee was my dream school; while a student there I was living my dream. Finishing, I didn’t know what my dream was anymore. I always thought my job would be so exciting but realized you have to do the work to get there. You have to start again after school, despite all the things you have done. I learned to put my head down and do the hard work.”

“I’ll run the numbers, put in recommendations for clients. The financial advisor has to approve all that, of course.”

“Being in such a diverse, international school you meet people from all around the world. It made me more open-minded and feel like I could have a conversation with anyone!

.
.
.
.
See the full index of successful Berklee alumni.

Position: Senior Software Engineer at Emergent Space Technologies,. Rolla builds and maintains software code related to satellite data transmission–both civilian and military. “The code I work on mostly writes other code.”

Overview: Initially from Australia, Rolla worked as a classroom support tech while a Berklee student. He gave music a solid go for six months after graduation, but didn’t earn enough money for it to be sustainable. He applied and got a job at Izotope, which does music Software, in early 2019–his experience at Berklee made him a good fit for their customer care team. Then when Covid hit Rolla decided to have his career go in a more remote direction, “I decided to make what had been my commute time into my school time and he enrolled in a remote Bachelors Degree program in Cybersecurity at Western Governors University., earning that degree in the spring of 2021.

With that new degree, Rolla convinced Izotope to switch his role to that of software engineering, which came with a nice raise. He contiued on with online eductaion, earning a Masters Degree in the same field from the same place in 2023. Meanwhile, in 2022 Rolla and his partner decided they wanted to move to Denver, Colorado. He applied and got a job at a consulting firm, but the hours were extremely long and the work stressful, so Rolla applied for jobs with a better balance. He was hired into his current position, without the senior title, then was promoted a year later when his Masters Degree was complete.
.
You can see Rolla’s LinkedIn profile here.
.
Choice Quotes: “I love being able to think of something and then do it entirely, having the freedom to be creative along the way and have something that solves a problem and really being able to make that happen without a 100-person team or something is quite remarkable and really enjoyable. I like the creative side and flexibility to solve REALLY hard problems. I like being around smart people, mentors who are geniuses and literal rocket scientists.”

“EPD had a class on max-msp which was kind of a visual programming language. That was an entry point and opened my mind to this technical world. Plus creativity and self-motivation are things I had to be good at to succeed at Berklee–you’ve got to go into those practice rooms.”

“If you want to learn software engineering, do projects on whatever you want to learn about. Go do the things you want to be able to learn how to do. You can pay for it in a class, or you can use Codcademy, Youtube, etc. You have the knowledge available to do all of this. If you don’t know what it is you want to do, try everything and see what resonates with you.”

“Doing music for those 6 months after graduation helped. Now I can say I gave it a shot. I’m happy; it’s hard to look back with regrets.”

.
.
.
.
See the full index of successful Berklee alumni.

.

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.”

.
.
.
.
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.
.
You can see Jade’s LinkedIn profile here.
.
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.”
.
.
.
.
See the full index of successful Berklee/BoCo alumni.

.
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.”
.

.

.

.

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.
.
You can see Kevin’s LinkedIn profile here.

.
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.”

.

.

.

.

See the full index of successful Berklee alumni.