What is your job/position?
I am a Senior Partner Development Manager at Amazon Web Services (AWS). I sit in an interdisciplinary role between product, marketing, and sales. I work with Venture Capital-backed technology startups that codevelop software services with AWS.
Describe the path that took you from your American Studies degree to your current career or life situation.
I have had a modern "Alexis de Tocqueville" path leading from Teach For America in Washington, DC, to hypergrowth startups in Silicon Valley to an MBA at University of Virginia to business development at Microsoft & Amazon Web Services.
What are the specific competencies you cultivated as an American Studies student that you now use in your professional life and that set you apart from your colleagues?
Interdisciplinary methodology, critical thinking, persuasive writing & speaking.
What are some of the surprising ways in which your American Studies degree has helped you in your professional or personal life?
American Studies exposed me to countless stories of business, cultural, political leaders reinventing themselves and constructing new systems & processes.
What do you wish you had known as an American Studies student? What advice would you share with current students?
With the proliferation of AI, see this technology as a tool. The roles that will be automated first will be tactical, which opens the door for American Studies students who can think strategically and leverage AI to improve our education, health care, commercial, financial, and political systems.