As an outsider, breaking into an industry can often seem like an impossible challenge and so we reached out to some very generous folks who agreed to share their stories of how they broke into their respective industries.

Chanana Mcgarry

The first job I got as a new Fertility Awareness and Holistic Sexual Health Educator was with an award winning telehealth platform, serving over 175 countries, which specializes in women and family health. I had recently graduated from the in depth 2-year program at The Well School of Body Literacy and been studying holistic health hands-on for almost 20 years at this point. Despite this robust background, and having full confidence I could make a real impact on the lives of women, I suffered from impostors syndrome when applying for this position. Read more>>

Arianne Loyola

I went to a trade school that specialized in esthetics, cosmetology and massage therapy. I took the esthetics program because ever since I was in high school I was always fascinated with bettering my skin and helping educate others on the importance of skincare. I also have dreamed of becoming a dermatologist and I know that being an esthetician would help me truly understand skin. While I was still in my program, after a few months we were allowed to take clients so I was letting all my friends, family and social media mutuals know to come and book a service. Since I was a student, we performed facials at a discounted price and I always made sure my clients felt comfortable and I’d walk them through their service if they were too nervous. One day I came to class and had a client that booked me that I did not know about till 20 minutes prior. Read more>>

Meagan Maris

The first step on my journey to becoming a professional tarot reader, astrologer, and channel was anything but conventional—it all started with a Halloween costume. I was dressed as a gypsy for a Halloween party, and as part of the costume, I carried a deck of tarot cards. They were just a prop to me at the time—until I met a real tarot reader at the party. She offered to give me a reading, and it was as though the cards unlocked something deep within me. I was hooked. Read more>>

Mulan Williams

This job quite literally fell into my lap. At the time, I was navigating life as a sex worker, doing my best to survive. One day, Angus Bradshaw, the director of Miracle of Love, invited me to lunch. During that lunch, he offered me a position to help establish Stafford House, a drop-in space for the community. I said yes, though I didn’t think too deeply about it at first—it felt like a fleeting opportunity. But just a few weeks later, I took a class to become an HIV tester, and two months into the role, I fell in love with the work. It was transformative. Read more>>

Daniel Martin Rynerson

Funny enough, I worked my way into working at a lab – the Center for Molecular & Behavioral Neuroscience in Newark by being a volunteer for one of their studies. It was interesting way to see the experiment that I eventually ended up working in, from the perspective of one it’s participants. I had found a posting on campus where I was doing my Master’s at Montclair and they were looking to pay people to participate in their study on reward processing in the brain. I responded to their flyer and ended up coming in to the lab, getting a full brain scan, and given a computer game to do while they read my brain’s responses to specific rewards given in the game. Curious about the study, I kept asking the guy stringing me up in the brain cap a number of questions about their research, trying to not give up my position as someone getting an advanced degree in Psychological Sciences. Read more>>