Alumni – Penn & Beyond

Curtain Call

J. Michael DeAngelis, Senior Digital Resources Manager

Penn alum Harold Prince (COL ’48) passed away today at age 91. Prince was a legendary theater producer and director, responsible for such classics as West Side Story, Cabaret, Company, A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd, Evita, The Phantom of the Opera, Parade and many many others.

I had the great pleasure of meeting Harold Prince about ten years ago right here on campus. He had come, as he did on more than one occasion, to speak to the Penn community about his career and take questions from students. I had the additional luck of attending a reception after and I recall the twinkle in his eye as he reunited with some of his fellow classmates, by then all in their mid-80s, but giggling in the way that only friends from undergrad do.

During his Q&A session, I asked him what made a good book to a musical, since he had previously said it was the most important ingredient. “I don’t know,” he said, “I just know that if you don’t have a good one, you’re dead.” Back at the reception, I introduced myself as the person who asked about books, explaining that I had just been published as playwright for the first time by Samuel French, Inc. His eyes lit up and he suddenly seemed ten years younger, throwing his arm around me: “ME TOO! I wrote one play and it’s with Sam French! Keep it up. Don’t stop!”

I could have lived in that moment forever. Here was a living legend, tossing his arm around me as if we were absolute peers. I’ve carried that gratitude with me since then and I hope that I’ve been able to pass that on. I’m no Hal Prince, but I’ve been lucky in my career and I feel I owe it to those striking out on a similar path to make them feel welcome and encourage them, as Mr. Prince did for me, to not stop.

No matter what your career path, I ask today that you follow in the steps of Harold Prince. Be bold in your ventures, be kind in their execution and be supportive of those who want to follow in your footsteps.

CS Radio: Episode 26 – “Serving Alumni”

As Homecoming approaches this weekend, we’re taking a look about the variety of services we offer to Penn alumni. We’re joined by Penn alum and Career Services employee, Ferrell Townshend, who will talk about how we work with alumni applying to medical school. Michael and Mylène highlight other services, including our network of private career counselors. All that, plus the usual rundown of this week’s events! Toast will be thrown!!

Enjoy!

Day in the Life: Teacher at Success Academy Charter Schools

Ever wondered what it’s like to teach at one of New York City’s top-performing public elementary schools — in Harlem? Join alumna Paloma Saez ’11 on Tuesday, April 8, when she tweets for @PennCareerDay. Learn about Success Academy, the unique network of public charter schools that Paloma works for. Success Academy has been nationally recognized for its robust curriculum, degree of parent involvement, extraordinary professional development program, and commitment to “joyful rigor.” The organization serves mostly high-risk, low-income, inner-city kids admitted by lottery, and yet its schools rank in the top 1 percent in New York State in math and the top 7 percent in reading. It has not only closed the achievement gap, but by several measures it’s actually reversed it.

Paloma teaches third grade at Success Academy Harlem 2. For her, being part of such an organization is inspiring. “When I learned about Success Academy, I fell in love with the model,” she says. “I loved the aesthetics. I loved how organized everything is and how supported the teachers are. The environment immediately felt social, intellectual, and stimulating in all ways. And the people I met were the kind of people I knew I wanted to be working with.”

She didn’t always know she wanted to be a teacher, though. When she started at Penn, she aimed for a career in chemistry, or, she thought, a combination of chemistry and art. Another option she considered was law, in particular juvenile justice. “The prison-to-school pipeline always fascinated me,” she says. But then she had a realization: “I though it would be better to focus on helping kids stay in school than on moving them from prison to school. That’s when I decided teaching was the way to go for me.” Saez taught for Teach for America for a year after graduating, and then started at Success Academy. The best thing about teaching third grade? “Seeing students succeed academically is great, but the moments that matter the most to me are when one student sticks up for another, or when students help and support one another. At this age you really see them becoming part of a team, and that’s an amazing reward.”

“Career Planning Isn’t Like Drawing a Map”: Insights from Penn PhDs 8-13 Years After Graduation

Career Services’ interest in our students doesn’t stop at graduation. In fact, we’ve surveyed recipients of Penn PhDs awarded between 1998 and 2003 to find out where they’ve gone in their careers (both academic and non-academic) and what advice they have for current graduate students and postdocs. We recently analyzed a lot of our data and posted the results to our 8-13 Year Out PhD Survey website. All of it is worth a read, but here are a few tantalizing tidbits:

The best laid plans

When they entered their PhD programs, 47% of respondents expected to go directly into a faculty job upon graduation, while another 18% expected to conduct postdoctoral research in academia upon graduating.
Approximately 24% of respondents indicated they did not originally intend to pursue higher education positions, and their career plans included industry, public sector and nonprofit work.
Interestingly, while the majority had some idea of what they would pursue after their education, 5% had no plan in mind.
At 8-13 years after degree, 69% of respondents say that they are doing what they originally expected; 31% saw their original plans change.
- TAKEAWAY: Attitudes about the various career fields open to people with PhDs can change over time—this is perfectly normal. You should take advantage of your time and the resources at Penn to explore different career fields of interest. Once you have done the background research on career options, it can be just as helpful to eliminate a career field from your list of possibilities as it is to add one. Career Services can help you to explore different careers, help provide you with approaches that can connect you with alumni in different industries, or support you as you aim for the career that you have always wanted.

Where in the world are Penn PhD’s?

About 56% of respondents report working in higher education (either as faculty or administrators). The next-largest industry represented is healthcare (11.5%), but there is great breadth to the career fields represented by the remaining 32.5% of PhDs.
PhD alumni who work as faculty report working in 40 of the 50 United States and 18 other countries.
51% of the faculty positions held by respondents are located in six US states: Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, California, Virginia, and Florida.
Of respondents who are faculty in the US, 54% work in public institutions and 46% work in private, not-for-profit institutions.

If They Were in Your Shoes…

Respondents shared extensive advice for current grad students. Advice for those who aspire to faculty positions is currently posted; check back soon for advice on other industries. The major themes: (1) Publish; (2) Choose advisors and mentors carefully and use them as a resource for research and professional ambitions; (3) Cultivate and maintain relationships with faculty, Penn alums, and scholars and students from other institutions; (4) Get teaching experience; (5) Start thinking about your career plans now. You can begin by reviewing the resources available at Career Services and making an appointment to speak with an advisor!

A Day in the Life: Marketing Research or Consulting? Blurred Lines…

by Dina Liu, WH ’12

I read an interesting article this morning on my train ride to Kraft in Northfield, Illinois, about the rise of agency-bred & raised consulting shops. These “sexy” agencies are starting to realize that their advertiser clients are demanding more insights, more analytic prowess, and most importantly, more actionable recommendations for what to do in-market. From trying to stem the hemorrhaging of lost market share to re-positioning an old network as the new Hispanic Millennial destination, these agencies’ clients are demanding more. Interestingly enough, while the world of agencies is still playing catch-up and starting to understand that it’s not sufficient to just be a “media shop” or a “creative shop,” Nielsen has carved a spot out for itself that is now ingrained in our clients’ business models. And this is why I’m making the claim (you heard it here first!) that marketing research has replaced traditional consulting. Gone are the days where your “research vendor” sat in the corner and only serviced you when you had a problem that required immense data crunching. Now? Now we sit with our clients, have dedicated consultative teams that align to our clients’ business groups, and provide the ammunition they need to make real-time decisions that make the most impact on top-line revenue and bottom-line margins. Nielsen is the foremost leader in this area of consultative insights provider. It’s not enough for me to tout my company’s credentials in this guest blog & claim that I’ve got one of the coolest jobs ever. Here’s a short story on what happened not a few months ago:

I did a tour of duty through product marketing for a digital ad effectiveness product called Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings (OCR for short). Nielsen’s focus on digital advertising has sharpened over the last five years, as the industry continues to see TV dollars migrating across screen to Digital and Mobile. Not only did I get the opportunity to understand the depth and chaos that is digital advertising in this day & age, but I got to be part of an incredible product leadership team that created this product, from concept & ideation to full-scale production & commercial release. OCR is now one of, if not THE, accepted currency on which digital advertising will be traded on, similar to how the Nielsen TV Ratings serve as the foundation for the television advertising world. Nielsen’s focus didn’t stop there. Domestic? Sure, we’ve got the US market…but what about our clients who span multiple countries and continents? One of my major projects was the preparation for the commercial launch of OCR in the French market- a European country whose privacy restrictions are notorious in technology/telecom. Working hand-in-hand with our incredible team of engineers around the globe, our own data provider partners, and our client service and sales teams, I got incredibly close to this product and was sent to Paris by Nielsen to train the local Nielsen team and host a client roadshow across the biggest publishers, advertisers, and agencies in France. Never thought two years ago, that here I’d be in Paris presenting to the directors of digital strategy for Starcom Media Group, Carat, Havas, Microsoft, L’Oreal, and Yahoo on why OCR will revolutionize digital advertising as we know it.

Long story short: Nielsen as a company embodies this incredible transformation we are seeing in how clients use big data and their consultative partners. We are no longer just a “data provider” or a “research vendor.” To sit on our laurels & accept those descriptors doesn’t do Nielsen justice. The culture, the mentality, and the senior leadership continuously push us to be THE solution to our clients’ problems. Spread sheets and number crunching? They’re most likely here to stay, but at least we can say that this is no longer the ONLY thing marketing research can provide.

Dina Liu graduated in May 2012, from Wharton with double concentrations in Marketing and Management. Primary extracurricular activities: President of Penn Mock Trial and member of Sigma Kappa, worked at the Penn Housing Office 3 out of 4 years. Junior summer, interned at Blackrock supporting their retail Defined Contribution business in their marketing and sales department. Currently working at the Nielsen Company as an Associate Media Analytics Consultant servicing the Viacom and Discovery Communications accounts in our Watch business. Live in Manhattan, have 2 goldfish, and enjoy foodie dates around the five boroughs.