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Name: Katie Livingston
Age: 31
Company Name: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Years With Company: 4
Previous Jobs: Brown University, Assistant Project Coordinator, IRIS (a multimedia research group) Boston University, Adjunct Faculty Member
Education:A.B., Cognitive Science and A.B., Anthropology/Archaeology, Brown University; Doctoral Candidate, Boston University School of Education
1. What is your official job title?
Senior Faculty Liaison
2. What is the job title you'd give yourself?
Technology Middleman (-person, if you prefer)
3. What makes your job unique?
I help the people who teach courses at MIT learn to use computers and see how different technologies might be useful for their teaching. I'm sort of a specialized consultant: I have to know a lot about different technologies, but also about individual disciplines (and education!) too.
4. How did your college major / graduate school degree help prepare you for your career path?
My college studies were quite interdisciplinary; I've never had one particular area of specialty. My college Career Planning office was of limited help; the standardized tests about career choices all came back as "inconclusive". If anything, college prepared me to be something of a jill-of-all-trades (I was going to say dilletante, but too many people think that word is akin to debutante, which I sure wasn't). I didn't decide to go to grad school until four years after graduation. Don't worry if you are a senior and are clueless: not everyone figures it out before graduation. Oh, and the old standby "What Color is Your Parachute" really did help me, so read it.
5. What necessary career information was missing from your studies? How did you pick up those skills and knowledge?
I'd say I was missing some technical skills and some social/business sense skills. The former are easy to develop, either by reading books or taking classes. The latter only come through experience, I think. Reading Dilbert books would probably also help (wish they had been around when I graduated; I would have anticipated many more management woes).
6. What difficulties did you encounter entering your chosen field?
The chief difficulty is that it wasn't, originally, a chosen field. It's not a standard career or job title that everyone understands. I sometimes envy a person who can just say she is a "cardiologist" or "litigator", until I realize that my job is much more interesting than those! As it happens, I fell into my first job due to a chance meeting in the spring of my senior year: I sat in on a discussion between a professor for whom I TA-ed and a computer science research group. The rep from the group mentioned that they had an entry-level position open for someone who could write, who had experience doing computer consulting (this was my on-campus job as an undergrad) and who had decent communication skills (I had been a radio DJ). I applied, was interviewed, got the job, and learned a lot about both computer science and about education. I also learned about what I did and did not like in a working environment. Eventually, I figured out that I wanted to work in the newly emerging field of educational media, so I went to grad school for a Master's (and after that, a Doctorate). It took me about 5 years after I graduated from college to know what kind of a career I wanted.
7. Why would you recommend your company or job?
MIT is great because I work with some exceptionally intelligent people. No one talks down to you or assumes that because you are female you must be the secretary, etc. Being a Faculty Liaison is also great because I can show faculty how computers or other technologies might be useful for their teaching. I get to dabble in lots of different fields (from Architecture to Engineering to Political Science to Zoology).
8. How does the size of your company impact your sense of job satisfaction?
I am lucky to work in a cohesive small group; there are five of us who have the title Faculty Liaison. I had always worked alone in previous jobs, and I find it very nice to have a team backing me up.
9. What three things are most rewarding about the work you do?
- helping (in whatever small a way) educate some of the world's brightest students
- I love being in a university atmosphere
- learning a lot about new technologies
10. What three things are most frustrating?
- Budget constraints in a non-profit environment limit what we can do
- Not as much pay as my colleagues in the corporate world receive
- Lots of politics within universities (and everywhere, I'm sure)
11. What three things are most fun?
- I get to play with some neat technological gizmos
- I work with (mostly) fun and sometimes unusual people
- I appreciate a flexible work schedule; if I want to leave early to go sailing one day, I can arrange to stay later the next day to make up the time.
12. How do you handle work stress?
Talking things out with other members of my team, or going for a walk or a jog at lunchtime.
13. How big a role does technology play in your career?
Very big; being at MIT we are expected to know all about the latest products. I'm not a programmer, but I do know a lot about computers and can use that knowledge. I used to think that you had to write code in order to be successful in this field, and that is *not true*!
14. How do you distinguish yourself from your co-workers?
For one, by my specialties (educational research, the Internet, multimedia development); I also have a "help desk personality". I really enjoy talking to customers and helping them learn about technology or solving their problems. This is not so of a lot of people working in computer-related fields.
15. Which popular song best describes your working life?
"A Good Man in a Storm"
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