Author: Kevin

Kevin Orlando

Listen to the interview (approx. 49 min.) or download it.

Graduated in 2014 with majors in Music Production & Engineering and Music Business.  Principal instrument:  guitar.

Position:  Software Engineer (official rank:  “Associate Software Engineer” — essentially the middle level) at Red Ventures, marketing firm which builds interactive websites for other companies, mainly very large ones.  Kevin is one of 200-300 engineers at this 2,000-person firm, and is one of a half-dozen engineers on the 20-person “Product Team.”  He mostly does back end programming, building databases and APIs.

Overview:  After graduation, Kevin moved home to Charlotte, NC.  His initial plan was a get a masters degree and he took classes at a community college that fall, but by the end of 2014 decided he’d rather work.  He scoured Indeed, applied and got a job with Mood Media (formerly “Muzak”):  initially an administrative-type job, but in the spring of 2016 he was promoted to design engineer, designing speaker layouts, wiring diagrams, etc.  The job was good, but it was a 90-minute commute each way, which grew tiresome.

Meanwhile, in early 2015 Kevin decided on a whim to learn coding, taking free online courses at Codecademy, Udacity, etc.  “I don’t know why I started it. It just sort of happened. Someone told me about it and showed me what they did and I just started doing it and never stopped.”  Spending nearly all of his spare time developing his coding skills, by the middle of 2016 Kevin felt ready to look for a job.  It took a while, but in December, 2016 he was hired by his current company as a Quality Assurance (“QA”) engineer.   In February, 2018 Kevin was promoted into his current role.

You can see Kevin’s LinkedIn profile here.

Choice Quotes:  “I don’t want to say I replaced music with programming, but it has that same kind of feeling to me. It’s easy to get lost–code for 3-4 hours and not really care about anything else.  Also, like guitar, you can always get better–there’s always something to learn.”

“I have a logical, problem-solving mind, and there’s always that problem to solve or way to make something better. That’s just kind of natural for me.”

“It wasn’t easy to move into full engineering from QA. I made friends with a lot of engineers and worked my butt off and kept taking online classes. At least I’d see them and know what I needed to know.”

“Berklee was a tough school in general, and with two majors I was always busy. It turned me into a really good worker and a really good learner. I used those entrepreneurial skills to better myself. and got really into just learning.”

“In your career path, don’t be afraid to say no. Pick things that you want to do and really excel and don’t just do a bunch of things that you won’t do well.  Also, don’t pick a career because you think it’s going to make you a lot of money. Pick something you’re good at and have an advantage and can enjoy doing.”

See the full index of successful Berklee alumni.

Lucy Patterson

 

Listen to the interview (approx. 31 min.) or download it.

 

Graduated in 2017 with a major in Film Scoring.  Principal instrument:  voice.

 

Position:  Technical Recruiter at Elevano, a small technology staffing company based in Orange County, California, that specializes in finding computer programmers with the right skill sets to fill open positions at companies.  Recruiters receive territories and programming languages to focus on:  Lucy’s are the San Francisco Bay Area, and Java/Javascript.  She finds new developers, touches base with the ones she knows in case they want a new opportunity, and also sees if corporations are interested in working with Elevano.

Overview:  Lucy made money as a waitress while a Berklee student.  After finishing Berklee in August, 2017, Lucy moved home with her parents.  She waited tables while looking for film scoring work.  An advertising agency she had been working with sent her some projects, but not nearly enough to support herself, and she wasn’t interested in doing a long, unpaid internship   So by the end of the year Lucy had created a profile on Indeed, looking for marketing jobs.  Almost immediately after making that profile her boss now-boss reached out to her with an opportunity to work at Elevano.  “It was very bizarre to get recruited, but my boss was looking for something particular. He liked servers because we’re fast & determined. I also had a high GPA. he found Berklee interesting.”

 

You can see Lucy’s LinkedIn profile here.

 

Choice Quotes:  “I didn’t have a background in recruiting, but my boss hired me because he saw I had the personality to do this job. I’m determined and like winning–I’m the type to go after something and not stop until I get it.  That’s why this is a good job for me and I enjoy it.”

“Technical recruiting is a happy mix of sales and marketing. Like sales, you have to turn your head and get to the next thing and not waste time dwelling on something you can’t effect.”

“Training at Elevano is you start doing your job and they watch and follow you through the entire process and will tell if you if you’re doing it wrong. I was happy to jump in and do it that way–I got better fast.”

“My first day at the job I felt totally in over my head with all the lingo and technical terms everyone was using where I had no idea, but you learn by hearing it. It”s like speaking a language. I caugth on pretty quickly.”

“I graduated Berklee early and the film-scoring major isn’t a piece of cake. I didn’t know much about music theory and had to catch up really fast.  At Berklee I’d watch those who are the most successful and see what they’re doing differently and I’d try to do the same thing. I’ve done that in my job: being persistent, being determined, working hard and that would lead to being successful.”

“Of course we all have a passion and a love for music. If you’re thinking about a non-music career, don’t let that passion for music completely disappear. Keep it going, even if it’s just keep singing in the shower. I don’t have guitar calluses on my fingers, but I take any freelance scoring gig that comes along.  Even when I’m not doing a paying gig, I write music for fun so as to not get rusty.”

 

 

See the full index of successful Berklee alumni.

Kelly Martin

Photo by Kelly Elaine Photo

 

Listen to the interview (approx. 56 min.) or download it.

 

Graduated in 2011 from the Boston Conservatory with a major in Musical Theater.

 

Position:  Interior Designer, the sole proprietor of her own Interior Design company, Kelly Martin Interiors.  Her company focuses on design for residences, middle to high-end, doing jobs ranging from full houses down to a single large bookcase.  While most work is done locally in L.A., the business also has an E-design component.  “She’s also launched an E-design part of the business , “All I need are dimensions and photos of the space and I can design for anywhere!  I’ve got clients in Boston, New York, Pennsylvania, and even someone in Pakistan.”  As a sole-proprietor, she handles all the administrative parts of the job as well as the creative aspects.

 

Overview:  Kelly’s family were bit Do-It-Yourselfers, and she became handy with tools while still a kid.  She also started performing at a young age, but by the time she was finishing up at BoCo she suspected she wanted a different career.  But she signed with an agent and went to New York after graduation.  Seven frustrating months later, she left New York and moved to L.A. where her then-boyfriend was living.  She worked many odd jobs during the first few months, then her skill with tools led to her spending a year working for a design build company, constructing high-end showroom sets.  It paid well, but was part time with variable hours.  A friend of a friend then got her a job as a production assistant for a home decorating TV show.  While working there, the show’s designer noticed that Kelly was good at design work, and she became his de facto assistant.  By the fall of 2012, the designer offered to set Kelly up with a job in either carpentry or interior design–she chose interior design.  One phone call, and she had a part-time job as a designer’s assistant.

Over the next few years, Kelly worked a series of interior design assistant jobs, mostly full time, at both large and small firms, getting great experience.  In 2014 she started Kelly Martin Interiors as a side thing while still working full-time, not sure if anything would come of it, but gradually she built up her reputation and clientele, so by late 2016 she was able to stop working for others and be on her own full-time.

 

You can see Kelly’s LinkedIn profile here.

 

Choice Quotes:    “Being self-employed, I get to make the decisions and don’t have to answer anyone else (With clients a collaboration, not someone telling me what to do).   Plus working on your own is how you make decent money in this field.  I do an hourly rate plus a commission on the goods I sell when I furnish a place.”

“After everything (furniture, etc.) is ordered it becomes a project management position and just making sure it all flows smoothly. I hate to say it, but my job is roughly 30% creative and 70% business.”

BoCo was really good at getting us to dip our toes in all aspects of musical theater:  performance, but also directing, production, and management, plus performance.  When I put together a show it was all about how it looked and she started to realize how I’m a very visual person.”

“I get most clients through word-of-mouth, but others find me through social media– mostly Instagram–plus some specialty design websites.”

“If you want to work in interior design, figure out a way to get a job in the field in some capacity, whether as a salesperson or an assistant or even doing receptionist/admin. work. Learn the ins and outs of the industry from whatever job you can get.  The design industry is forever growing and changing and there are always opportunities to move up.”

 

 

Kelly working on a project (photo by Meghan Bob Photography).  “I love the hands-on nature of my job. Even at BoCo I’d take classes at the MFA museum school, painting and art. I like getting my hands dirty. I’ve done carpentry and woodworking, and love watching the construction. It’s really cool to formulate an idea then, work with people to see it come to life.”

 

 

See the full index of successful Berklee/BoCo alumni

Dylan Nelson

 

Listen to the interview (approx. 1 hr, 2 min.) or download it.

 

Graduated in 2014 with a major in Music Production & Engineering.  Principal instrument:  guitar.

 

Position:  Territory Manager (Sales).  Dylan works for an insurance company where he sells franchises.  He reaches out to people, typically those who work in the industry, in his geographical territory and encourages them to invest their time and money to open a franchise affiliated with this company.  There’s a base salary, but most of his pay is commission and bonus-based.

Overview:  While at Berklee, Dylan really wanted to work at a specific high-end rock studio in L.A., figuring he’d start as a runner and work his way up.  He did exactly that after graduation, getting a job there and becoming a de-facto assistant engineer after a year and a half.  However, he continued to be paid minimum wage and gradually grew to hate the long and unpredictable hours, feeling he had no life outside the studio.  One day in late 2016 Dylan was relaxing at the beach with friends and he got a call to come in right away to work with a famous rap artist and he expressed his unhappiness to his friends, who suggested that if engineering for a super-famous rap artist wasn’t making him happy, maybe he should find another career.

Dylan considered different options, and decided that sales was the best path toward what he wanted–he had family in sales and knew that it could provide excellent income.  Being from Texas and aware that it was booming economically, he searched online for sales jobs there.  Dylan found his current company and convinced them to give him a chance; he moved out there and started working at his current job in the spring of 2017.

 

Choice Quotes:  “I like the feeling of success when you finally make that sale that you’ve been working really hard at and you see it come to fruition and it’s really rewarding. A lot of the people I work with are middle-aged and have kids and it’s rewarding to help them put their life in a better position. Also the money is good–I got out of music because I wanted to be financially comfortable, buy a house, have a retirement, etc.”

“Even in the studio I was always very buttoned up and professional. There were no bad habits to unlearn.   But I was still surprised very quickly how hard/stressful sales could be. You make a lot of money in sales, but you’re working really hard. It’s a skill which you can have or not, but he equalizer is hard work.”

“When I left the studio for the job, every single person at work and all my acquaintances thought I was crazy–the looks some people gave me!  But my closest friends were like ‘Dude, do it.'”.

“At Berklee I got to interact with many different people–all the international students and those with different backgrounds. You get out of the box of your hometown and see the world through other people’s eyes, which in sales is an experience worth its weight in gold.”

“When interviewing for this job, I sold myself by saying, ‘When I was in the studio working on projects I was working with egotistical whack-jobs doing the most important project in their life. Being in a windowless small room with these people you learn a lot about relating and working with people. Selling franchises is the same thing. I’ve got to help them through this hugely important process without stepping on their toes. It’s a jump, but I want to win and I’m ready to start making some money.'”

 

 

See the full index of successful Berklee alumni.

Michael Ranieri

 

Listen to the interview (approx. 49 min.) or download it.

 

Graduated in 2010 with a major in Music Business.  Principal Instrument:  guitar.

Position:  Registered Nurse in the acute psychiatric care wing of Cooley Dickinson Hospital, a community hospital in Northampton, Massachusetts which treats many different medical conditions.  Here’s the primary contact person for 7 patients, who typically are there for less than two weeks.  He does a medical status assessment on each patient, “charts” their progress (enterins the data) and makes sure each patient is OK and takes whatever medicine is needed.  He’ll also suggest treatment options to the doctor or team.  He’s currently working part time (24 hours/week), but the pay is good.   He could work more hours if he wanted to, but has a small child at the moment.

Overview:  After finishing Berklee at the end of 2010, Michael moved home (Connecticut) after graduation, and sold guitars at Sam Ashe while teaching guitar a bit on the side.  In the fall of 2011, though a temp. agency he got a job as a substitute teacher in the public elementary schools.  Michael wanted to profession in which he helped people.  He considered getting his M.Ed. and becoming a classroom teacher, but noticed that it was hard to get a job and was scared of ending up unemployed.  Many members of his family, including his then-girlfriend (now wife) worked in medicine, and that seemed like a safe way to earn a good income, so in the fall of 2012 he started taking prerequisites to go to Nursing school.  His wife finished Optometry school and got a job in  Northamption, so they moved up there in the fall of 2013.  Paperwork issues delayed his enrollment in nursing school for a year, but he was able to spend the year working at a special ed. teacher’s assistant, experience which proved relevant to his current job.

September 2014 Michael entered the Accelerated Second Bachelors Degree in Nursing program at Elms College.   He got good grades, and graduating in the spring of 2016, got his license in July, and started looking for hospital-based jobs, sending out over 100 applications.  Finally in November, his third interview led to a job at Cooley Dickinson hospital, working the night shift in the medical/surgical unit.  Michael liked his job, but really didn’t like working nights as he rarely saw his then-pregnant wife, so when a daytime position opened up in the psychiatric wing he took it.

 

You can see Michael’s LinkedIn profile here.

 

Choice Quotes:

“As a psychiatric nurse you get to know the patients on a very deep, personal level often. They share their deepest, darkest secrets–abuse, trauma history. Often the people are readmitted.  It’s often a chronic thing, like diabetes, you’re just trying to keep the symptoms under control and help people live with it.”

“I really like the interactions with patients and my colleagues. This is huge: I get along really well with your bosses–that’s important anywhere no matter where you work. I also really like psychopharmacology, learning about the medications and how they work.”

“Those first few weeks as a nurse are hard. You learn knowledge at school,and you need it, but then you do it and you feel a lot of pressure and no school was enough preparation.”You learn to grow up and be independent very quickly!”

“You always have options–don’t feel that your Berklee degree limits what you can do. Just the name “Berklee” will help you stand out — it definitely helped me as I was applying to nursing jobs.

 

Michael as a Berklee student.  “To be a good musician you have to be disciplined–same as being a good nurse or student. It took real commitment to finish Berklee’s program, and similar commitment to do a nursing program.”

“I still practice to keep my chops up. Music is ingrained in me, but these days it’s more a hobby than anything else.”

 

 

 

 

 Michael with his son and “Santa.”  “If you want to continually learn and grow as a person, the medical field is great!  Nursing is a good career choice because you don’t have to go back to school for 8 years–you can do it as an adult learner.”

 

 

 

 

See the full index of successful Berklee alumni.

Conrad Hollomon

 

Listen to the interview (approx. 33 min.) or download it.

 

Graduated in 2008 with a major in Film Scoring.  Principal instrument:  viola.

 

Position:  Program Director (Corporate Trainer/Consultant) at Techstars, an “accelerator” which takes early-stage technology start-ups invests in them, and puts them through a 3-month training program on how to grow and be financially successful.  Conrad is on a 2-person team specializing in hardware.  He finds clients, builds the curriculum, works one-on-one with the founders and helps them network.

Overview:    After graduation Conrad got a job with Harmonix, which makes music software, as a QA (Quality Assurance) tester.  He also had done ROTC while at Berklee and went into the U.S. Army Reserves.  While doing QA he was interested in engineering, and began hanging out with the engnieers at work.  He worked at Harmonix for 6 years, though one of those was spent in Afghanistan with his army unit.  While he was doing coding informally at his job, and was promoted to senior QA tester, but he wanted to be a “real engineer” so in 2015 he started looking for jobs.    Mid-2014 a former boss at Harmonix had moved on to GSN (TV & Games) and convinced Conrad to follow along, again in a QA role but after doing so found he didn’t like the large corporate atmosphere and soon started looking for other opportunities.

Meanwhile, Conrad volunteered with Operation Code, a non-profit which helps veterans learn coding to build their civilian  careers.  He went through an accelerator as part of that, and got connected wtih the tech/startup scene in Boston, which in turn connected him to Techstars.  Conrad’s experiences working with military hardware, training people, and working in high-tech made him a great fit for an open position, and he was hired int his current job in October, 2017.  In addition to his full-time job and continued volunteering with Operation Code, Conrad is working toward getting his MBA.

 

You can see Conrad’s LinkedIn profile here.

 

Choice Quotes:  “I love being in a role where I can help others be successful. It’s endlessly creative. You see all these creative technologies. All these creative & innovative people who are trying to make it to the next level while creating something really special. Knowing I can help turn those dreams into reality is the best part of my job.”

“What the tech industry needs most in organizations are folks with empathy, who know how to communicate, who understand how to work on small teams. Everyone at Berklee does that.”

“Be flexible and iterative in your career.  Once you’ve learned what you can from something, don’t hesitate to try something else. Too many folks waste 10-20 years doing something they don’t like while what they like is a side thing–I don’t want to live that way.”

“Working with music hardware, complex software platforms, has a lot of applications that people don’t always think about.  Music is that alignment between empathy and understanding others, but there’s also an element of rigor and discipline. You’re looking at how all these pieces of music work together. That’s what good product design is about.  Improvization is important as well.  I would not be where I am at all without my Berklee degree–that was the exact degree needed for my career.”

Startups are a great place to be. You’ll be taking risks and eating ramen for a bit, but the highs and the lows are awesome.  To get into the field, look at the experiences you’ve had and figure out what your ‘superpower’ is–what people know you for. ”

 

 

See the full index of successful Berklee alumni.

Stanislas Barrault

 

Listen to the interview (approx. 1 hr, 13 min.) or download it.

 

Graduated in 2013 with a major in Music Business.  Principal instrument:  drums.

 

Position:  Data Analyst/Consultant at Ekimetrics, a consulting firm that uses very sophisticated modeling and artificial intelligence to predict future sales for large businesses.   Stanislas, working with two more senior people, develops these statistical models, checking in with the client, then puts together a large presentation.  A typical project takes about 6 months and he’ll be working on 3-6 projects at any given moment.

 

Overview:  Stanislas planned to do business, and initially came to Berklee thinking he’d study music for one year before studying business, but determined that Berklee’s Music Business program would provide adequate business education for him to be prepared for pursuing a graduate degree into a top business school.  After graduating, Stanislas did a 5-month internship in New York at MGM, then returned home in early 2014 to Paris, France and spent several months studying extremely hard for the GMAT.  Doing well, he was accepted into the Masters of Science in Managment program at ESSEC, considered the #2 business school in France.  This 3 year program involved two 6-month internships, and is a bit more robust than a standard MBA.

After graduating, Stanislas was eager to improve his hard/technical skills, and had heard great things about Ekimetrics from family and friends.  He spent several months taking MOOC courses to learn more statistics, then his brother, who worked at an affiliated company, passed in his resume while friends who worked them prepared him for interviews.  He got the job in January, 2018, despite being one of extremely few people there with a business, rather than an engineering, degree.

 

You can see Stanislas’s LinkedIn profile here.

 

Choice Quotes:   “Every day I’m out of my comfort zone and learning. I have problems to solve and find ways to solve them. It can be frustrating, but when I’m done solving it it’s very enjoyable. I’m working in a very cool environment where people are relaxed but ultra-smart. ”

“ESSEC is a highly ranked school, so when you have this on your CV you can get nearly any interview you want, though once you’re at the interview you get the same hard questions as everybody else.”

“At Berklee I was doing every day what I loved the most. It was amazing, opened me to a lot of subjects. And that focused practice on music helped me be rigorous, disciplined and able to work autonomously–all of which I have had to be both at grad school and in my job.”

“Our models have r-squared values over 99%, and p-value less than 0.01. That’s why it takes so much time to do–our models have around 100 variables and we’re checking every single variable, making sure we’re unbiased, and so forth.”

“You have to be very proactive about your future and very objective about your situation and what the job market is expecting from you.  Pay attention to the real world, and the different industries where you might work. Find your strengths, understand that often it’s not enough and you need to specialize further and differentiate yourself. Ask yourself what you’er going to do after graduation starting in your very first year at Berklee.”

 

 

See the full index of successful Berklee alumni.

Elizabeth Ricci

Listen to the interview (approx. 44 min.) or download it.

 

Graduated in 2011 with a major in Music Business.  Principal instrument:  voice.

 

Position:  Project Manager at Capitol One, a national full-service bank that also does credit cards and car loans and has roughly 50,000 employees.  Elizabeth works on the Associate Experience Team, which supporting the 9 “cafes” (where customers do their banking online) in Boston, plus a number out of state.  She helps ensure that people are happy and have what they need to do their jobs well, collecting feedback and sending that to partner teams to seek improvements where appropriate.

Overview:   Elizabeth worked at Starbucks while at Berklee.  After graduation, she wanted to stay in Boston, but felt that a music career would be nearly impossible while here, so she decided to pursue a career at Starbucks.  Through hard work and good customer service she was promoted to shift manager, then shift supervisor, then, in early 2014 store manager.  However, after some time it was clear that open positions the next level up, district manager, were extremely few and far between and she would have to look elsewhere for career growth.

In mid-2015, a friend who worked at Capital One suggested that she apply for their Cafe Ambassador position.  Elizabeth did and not the job, which involved helping customers with their online banking, as well as a substantial increase in pay.   Her second year she won their Associate of the Year award, but she was most interested in project management.  She applied internally to one position and didn’t get it, but they soon created her current team and suggested she apply for her current position, which she got in early 2018.

You can see Elizabeth’s LinkedIn profile here.

 

Choice Quotes:  “It’s all about providing people with a solution they wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. I’m an escalation point. People have gone through all other options, and then they come to me, and I’m a ‘get stuff done-er.”

“I love when I can get something done quickly that people had been trying to do for months. I’m also fortunate to be able to work from home, travel. Capital One gives great benefits and I love my company and believe in the mission.”

“My position is new within the company.  With no predecessor; me and my two peers across the country are setting the precedent for what this job entails.”

“If you have any inkling of what you want to do for the rest of your life, just follow your passion–whether or not it’s music. You can accomplish anything if you put in the work and work hard.”

“When was a Berklee student I struggled hard trying to find if I was going to have a successful career if I wasn’t going to be in music. I’m glad this project exists.”

See the full index of successful Berklee alumni.

Mike Day

 

Listen to the interview (approx. 42 min.) or download it.

 

Graduated in 2010 with a major in Professional Music.  Principal instrument:  bass.

 

Position:  Account Executive (sales) at NetApp, a large data-storage company that provides online data-storage “the Cloud” services to large businesses, as well as hospitals and governments.  “Everyone carries in their pocket the data services we provided by NetApp.”  Around 25% of his time is spent on finding new clients, while the other 75% is spent on existing clients–making sure that NetApp is meeting their data storage needs and offering opportunities to upgrade their services.

 

Overview:  Graduating at the end of the summer, Mike was feeling a bit burned-out on music and wanted a break.  He moved home to Chicago, worked as a camp counselor and at a day care, plus gigged and taught music a bit on the side.  A friend’s parent had a wine distribution company which needed a merchandise person, and Mike took the job, but after a few months realized that wine wasn’t a passion and started looking for something else.  His uncle, who ironically was working at NetApp at the time, suggested he apply for a sales job at CDW, a large re-seller of technology.  That job was really tough, with lots of cold-calling and fairly low pay, but Mike worked extremely hard and stayed extra long and after 2 years was promoted to a outside sales job in Madison, Wisconsin.

After a successful year, his boss and boss’s boss moved to Dallas and took him with them, but his job started to feel more like inside sales, so Mike looked for a new opportunity and found one selling software for EMC.  Two years later a hiring manager at NetApp reached out to Mike directly and convinced him to work for NetApp.

 

You can see Mike’s LinkedIn profile here.

 

Choice Quotes:   “I dove into music age 14-22.  I see sales as another avenue to be the best I can be. There’s also a lot of autonomy–I can create my own schedule, work from home if I want.”

“Be proud of your Berklee degree–it’s one of the hardest degrees to get in America! Wear it and create a narrative around why the Berklee degree is valuable in this other industry.”

“To have a successful sales career, control the controllables. My first couple years I worked 70-100 hour weeks. That got me a reputation that allowed me to progress my career. Also sometimes you have to move out to move up. Get in early, stay late, make great friends with your boss & network. If you’re a successful musician you’ve already learned how to do this

Music is a microcosm to life. “Practice doesn’t make perfect–PERFECT practice makes perfect!   Music also teaches us to listen first–listening, it isn’t about soloing all the time. It’s learning how to support. In sales, we should be listening for 55 minutes and talking for 5.”

“I’ve never looked for a job without having one currently–you lose all leverage if you don’t have a job.”

“I plays music nearly every day for my baby son.  I hand’t realized how much of my ego & identify were tied to music. With my son my ego & identity have nothing to do with it and it’s just about fun and trying to make him smile. It’s the healthiest relationship I’ve ever had with music.”

 

 

See the full index of successful Berklee alumni.