This past week, students in the History, Anthropology, and Classics department were welcome to attend panel of three alums to give advice to current students. Maggie Gentry (Class of 2010), Chelsea Linder (Class of 2011), and Claudia Vinci (Class of 2020) took questions from students and shared their respective journeys from graduation to their current employment. All three alums reminded attendees that no journey is linear, and the future usually has a way of working out.
Maggie Gentry graduated with a combined Anthropology and Psychology major. After working for a few years managing customer experience consulting work for multiple different companies, Maggie is now the Director of Experience Analytics and Network Analytics for Community Health Network (CHN). She utilizes her anthropology degree everyday analyzing customer satisfaction and working with her co-workers and customers to find solutions to problems. She is constantly asking what is at the heart of both a problem and its solution. She also considers the people behind the issues to determine the weight of each new issue that arrives in the collaborative process of solving problems. Maggie discussed the conceptualization of self-worth while briefly highlighting some struggles with imposter syndrome throughout her career. She advises others now to learn how to be vulnerable as that is what is important to the individual and the company.
Chelsea Linder graduated with an Anthropology and International/ Global Studies double major. Chelsea is the Vice President of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at TechPoint after working at Gener8tor helping connect startup organizations. Before that she worked at different levels of customer satisfaction at Angie’s List. She discussed how the skills she learned at Butler allowed her to have the confidence and ability to network, a high factor she contributed to her success. She has used her anthropology degree directly throughout her entire career in a similar vein to Maggie by connecting to the individual customer, employee, startup, etc. to focus solutions and opportunities for growth. Chelsea’s main advice was to take chances as they come. Even a job that is not one hundred percent what you are looking for may lead to further opportunities down the line to find that perfect job.
Claudia Vinci graduated with a History/Political Science and Chinese double major. She recently became the Exhibits Researcher at the Indiana Historical Society after working at the White House Historical Association in D.C for a few years. Claudia fully utilizes her degree everyday deciding what aspects of history should be presented in the museum and working with the design team to help achieve a positive learning environment. She also briefly highlighted the fact that life is not linear. She really wanted a museum job early on, found a job with the White House Association that wasn’t exactly what she wanted, but it gave her experience and the ability to find the museum job she has currently. Claudia also discussed the importance of work-life balance and was able to provide a perspective to students on applying to grad school.
Overall, all three alumnus were able to provide students with a variety of perspectives when approaching one’s future. We greatly thank Maggie Gentry, Chelsea Linder, and Claudia Vinci for taking the time to come and talk with students.
