SO, AN ARTIST WALKS INTO A BUSINESS SCHOOL…
We’ll get to the nitty-gritty of the biz experience, I PROMISE, but I entered college as a sociology major. And I loved it.
I studied group behavior, societal trends, climate crisis panic, groupthink, intersectionality, and massive historical cultural shifts. It taught me how to look through many different people’s eyes, from all walks of life. I discovered the hybrid subject of historiology—a nerd’s paradise, the study of social patterns throughout history—and became entrenched in it, in a good way.
But that bachelor’s degree flew by in only two years, and I needed to find a new obsession.
I wanted to continue to explore fashion, since I’d worked in the space for a few years already and wanted to go deeper. But there’s no major for fashion, at least at Binghamton... How could I make this work?
I did some research on the different business majors at Binghamton, since that felt like the next best thing. I came across their Leadership and Consulting program, and noticed that they mentioned retail consulting in the degree description. And before I knew it, I was enrolled in Binghamton’s dual degree program, and strapped in for another rollercoaster two years. Reactions were… mixed.
People that know me best are aware of my math difficulties. Ever since I was a child, the most basic of math functions stumped me, and to this day, I still struggle to conceptualize them. That, and I was one of the few students not going into accounting or finance, a rarity at Binghamton’s School of Management, which limited my resources. I was also enrolling in a school where I (half-knew) one person, so this was a completely new world.
But something saved me, and kept me on track with my peers, and that was my ability to be creative.
Now, they’re not exactly asking employees to paint masters at McKinsey, but the ability to come up with ideas from thin air? Well, that’s as priceless as a Da Vinci.
Being an artist helped me use different skills to study this new material. Finance modules became songs, management presentations became performances, and my business technology deliverables used many more colors than the suggested palette. Everything was… dare I say… FUN.
This helped me get through all of my general education requirements, and made projects super enjoyable. My teammates would be incredibly helpful and teach me about numbers and data analysis, and I would teach them about graphic design and product innovation. Win-win!
That balance was a GODSEND, and it made me appreciate my peers so much more—they were teaching me just as much as my professors were.
It wasn’t without roadblocks, though. Sometimes I wanted to deviate from rubrics and go far beyond what was asked of me, (HOT TIP: do not ask your finance professor if you can attach a moodboard to your balance sheet) and not being able to use my creative instincts stung.
But now that I’m in my senior year and exploring postgraduate opportunities… it’s proving to be a strength I am grateful for. Sharing mine or other’s art with employers, professors, and peers brings me closer to them; and it allows me to relate to them by discussing something they might love, too.
Today, I was asked to speak in the freshman management class at the business school. With my full chest, I told all those wide-eyed freshmen to take an art class.
Maybe I will be attaching a moodboard to my next job application… watch out, LinkedIn.