Culture-Driven Career Design

I take a culture-driven approach to career development. As a career advisor, I want to do more than help students with a job application. I want to help them become part of a professional community and get a long-term vision for their future.  

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At Georgia Tech, I manage the Career Design Studio, the in-house career services office of the School of Modern Languages, which offers coaching appointments and materials review for graduate students in the MS-GMC and MS-ALIS, as well as Modern Languages majors in any language.

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I also teach several career courses that use culture-driven approaches, including Building Community: Culture, Identity, Diversity, & Inclusion, a course on communication and culture change management designed for graduate research assistants in marketing and student engagement roles.

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Career Education:

Courses at Georgia Institute of Technology: 

• Career Design for Global Citizenship

• Career Portfolio, M.S. in Global Media and Cultures
• Professional Portfolio, M.S. in Applied Language and Intercultural Studies
• Global Career Lab auf Deutsch (Taught in German)
   

Coaching and Consulting: 

• Walk-in Career Counseling, MLA Convention, 2019

• Workshop: Talking to Recruiters, MLA Convention, 2019

• Ad-hoc consulting for liberal arts departments, 2018

• Academic Skills Coach, Stanford University 

• Freelance career coaching for PhDs in humanities

Cultural Studies and Liberal Arts

It's been 10 years since I started teaching in the college classroom, first as an instructor of intensive German language, then in interdisciplinary programs like Stanford's Program in Writing and Rhetoric and as a TA for "Chemistry and Art," and now at Georgia Tech, where I continue to teach German as well as life design and organizational culture. 

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I see my classroom as a laboratory in which students can experiment with raw materials and develop their own content. Most of my courses involve project-based learning and collaborative activities -- inspired by the communicative approach in foreign language studies, which uses roleplay and authentic materials to help students build the courage to connect and communicate with native speakers in unfamiliar settings. In addition to the career courses listed above, which I love to teach, here are some of my favorite courses: 

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Building Community: Culture, Identitiy, and Inclusion

Designed for graduate assistants working in marketing and community engagement roles, this course covers theories in communication, design, inclusion, and organizational culture. We talk about customer narratives, resilience psychology and optimism, team culture and belonging, mental health and well-being, graphic design, and public writing. 

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Germany Today: Politics and Culture

In this course, students follow current events in Germany and learn about the politica system, major debates, and the history of German politics, working directly with speeches, news media, and election data. This course has been taught during the Syrian civil war, EU financial crisis, the signing of the Paris Accords, Russia's entry into the Ukraine, and during two election cycles in Germany. Taught in German. 

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Old Stories, New Media: Great German Tales and their Adaptations 

There are some stories we see again and again: the star-crossed lovers, the battle of good vs evil, the mad genius. This course surveys German cultural history through the eyes of its most enduring myths and tales, such as the Grimm fairy tales, Tristan and Isolde, and the Faust Legend. Students learn about translation and adaptation theory, and explore many versions of each tale to discover how narratives evolve across historical periods and media. Taught in German.

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Russian for Spies (public workshop)

A one-hour crash course in introductory Russian, held at the James Bond Convention, 2018. Students learned to deliver a secret message that the mission had been accomplished, as well as some basic phonetics, cognates, and 1970s-era pop culture.​

Summary of Courses Taught

Career Education and Lifelong Learning:

• (2x) Career Design for Global Citizenship (undergraduate, 1-3 credits), S2018, S2019, Georgia Tech

• (3x) Professional Portfolio (master’s level, 2-3 credits), S2020, F2020, S2021, Georgia Tech

• (3x) Global Career Lab auf Deutsch (for STEM-majors, in German, 1 credit), F019, F2020, S2021, Georgia Tech
   

Interdisciplinary:

• (2x) Building Community, Diversity, and Inclusion (cultural management), F2019, F2020, Georgia Tech

• Bildung: How to Become a Global Citizen (freshman composition), F2013, Stanford University

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German Studies:

• (3x) Contemporary German Politics, F2018, Georgia Tech Ÿ F2012, S2014, Stanford University

• Old Stories, New Media: Great German Tales and their Adaptations, F2014, Stanford University

• 15 Courses in German Language (novice to advanced), F2011-S2016, Stanford Ÿ S2018, F2019 Georgia Tech

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Teaching Assistant:

• Germany in Five Words (300 students)

• Chemistry, Art, and Madness (Cantor Arts Center, Chemical Engineering)

• Golden Key Music Festival in Vienna: two-week educational trip to Vienna for K-12 pianists and composers