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.

Chanice Taylor

I was in my graduating year at Hunter College, finishing my bachelor’s in psychology. I quickly realized that graduate school wasn’t the direction for me. I had no real plan, no clear path. I’d always been drawn to athletics, but at the time, I was just a semi-frequent gym-goer. Read more>>

Julie Rushkewicz

My first job out of grad school was as a substance use counselor at Cook County jail in Chicago. I was eager to apply my new skills to help underserved populations…and the treatment service provider at the jail was happy to accept counselors working toward their full licensure. The environment was quite intimidating; the walk to my building involved passing multiple divisions of heckling incarcerated folx each day, then through several areas of security before reaching my unit. My caseload in the all-male “House of Serenity” varied between 60-75 clients, mostly people of color, and almost exclusively lower SES. Read more>>

Kayla Heersink

My dad is the optometrist in the small town that I grew up in. I got interested in eyeglasses fashion at a very young age because I started wearing glasses in kindergarten. It was the 80s and I picked out pink glittery frames and embellished the lens with a semi permanent silver dog sticker. I started working in the office after class when I was in high school. The intersection of fashion and medical device has always been interesting to me, and I love being able to help someone pick out the perfect pair. Read more>>

Karen Carter

It was a recession when I had a landscape architecture practice in California and I was facing laying off employees. I flew to Hawaii (where I also had a license to practice) to see if I could find work there. I was offered a hotel project but the caveat was I needed to know feng shui so I could design with that in mind. I said, “of course – I can do it!” as one does when desperate times call for it. (You know, actors take on a project and then research how to become that? That’s what I said to myself anyway.) So I started searching for someone to train me in feng shui for the project and once I did that job I was asked by other developers to help them with other projects. I was suddently a person who had a unique combination of talents. Read more>>