The answer to my search…Udacity DMND.
A mid-career crisis that I seem to have found an answer for.
2021 has been, thus far, a year of self realization. I work as a consultant for a successful management consulting firm in the US and I am very happy and comfortable here.
I have a technical background and did an MBA almost 10 years ago now. I got a job as Business Analyst and I knew that I wanted to work my way into becoming a Project Manager. So I did and I thought that is the path everyone takes to become a leader in this world and make money. I got married in 2014 and moved to Silicon Valley and I was excited for the new phase in my life. My career plan always included this milestone and things were going as planned. I found a new job and work was great. Little did I know that life would throw a curve ball at me that would change everything (quite a project manager right!!)
Couple years passed, I had a kid and unknowingly I started putting my career goals on the back burner. There was always had an excuse handy in case someone asked “What’s going on with your career?” or “Where to next?”. My husband would jump in to that pool or questioners and ask me to start looking to change my job “coz I had been here too long already”. I started happening so often that come early 2020, I started considering it…seriously.
The big question — what do I want to do and where do I start?
A self-assessment was in order and I started talking to my manager at work about what he thought my strengths and weaknesses were. I even started looking for Project Management positions on LinkedIn. I would apply and interview for some and rejected all the time. Should I look into doing another MBA — a partial or executive one. If yes, then what should I major in? I don’t want to give another GMAT exam because that is impossible with a fulltime job and a 2 yr old at home in COVID times.
In 2019, I had started on a project in the marketing space — specifically website growth and optimization. It was new to me but I loved learning about it and was grateful to have been part of that experience. I finished that project only to land up on a consumer marketing project in 2020 within the same company. It felt like my destiny was in front of me but I just was not seeing it.
I think I found the answer!
A Project Manager in the marketing space seemed to be my path!! Come 2021, I started taking random courses on LinkedIn Learning in Digital Marketing and Design Thinking. It was good, but it was all video and no hands on work I could test my learning on. I had seen Coursera which offered courses from universities, but didn’t seem to have the real-life experience aspect to it. Enter Udacity’s DMND program (which I stumbled upon accidentally to be frank!!) and it seemed to check all the items on my checklist — cost efficient, real-life examples, hand-on projects and feedback, flexibility to do it from home alongside work and exposure to areas in Digital Marketing I never would have learned about at work.
I am loving the program so far and am excited to see where this takes me in my new-found career goal as a working mom. Thank you Udacity!!
