Should your academic background define your career?

2018 has been one roller-coaster year for me. Actually, the year 2015-2018, the period after finishing my graduate study in New Zealand has been one of the oddest moments in my life. Starting in 2015 that I met my long-lost Dutch family members, coming out as a bisexual person publicly, and my sister was getting married, but most importantly, the fact that my career has deviated even further from what I studied at schools.

When I was a child, I never heard about international relations before. I failed miserably in the social science related class, especially history and economy, and scored highest in natural science such as mathematics and physics. However when I entered high school at Sancta Ursula BSD, I grew interested in arts and culture, and I practiced classical piano, visioning myself to enter conservatory someday. However, my mom told me, a musician won't have a bright prospect in Indonesia. You cannot be rich if you become a musician, and especially not a classical pianist, and I understood what she said. Despite my "okay" skill in classical piano, I was never that talented in music, and I treated musical notes merely as a mechanical instruction. I remember my classical piano teacher scolded me because I played Chopin's compositions like a robot, "you need to be more melancholic in this part!", "this one needs to be fierce and emotional!", for me it's just instruction of touching the keyboards with pianissimo versus fortissimo.

For some reason, I ended up studying at international relations at Parahyangan Catholic University in Bandung, Indonesia. Studying in Bandung, living as cash-strapped student and away from my home was probably one of the best moment in my life. I met people who would become my lifelong friends.

The IR faculty at Parahyangan Catholic University has a unique introduction for the freshmen you see. The faculty has a tradition to throw freshmen into a international conference simulation. During my time, I became the head of delegation of Israel, and became interested with middle east politics ever since. However, the more I studied middle east politic, the more I realized there is nothing applicable about middle east politic other than studying conflicts, thus I focused my study in Asia Pacific region and international political economy.

My dream changed, I wanted to become a diplomat (or working at international organizations) or anything related to international relations. However, when I graduated, the economy was in recession, and I had trouble finding relevant jobs. I worked as an analyst at an insurance broker for almost two years, which was probably too long because I never had a passion on it. It took me a little luck and network before I finally got my first job at a consulting company and worked there for 1.5 years. However, I still thought that the job was not suitable with my background, thus I started applying jobs again, and I worked at a public affairs firm. Despite my great time there, my work time was cut short as I received a scholarship to study at Massey University in New Zealand.

My time in New Zealand, was also one of the best period of my life as I met with a lot of people that sadly I probably would not meet anymore due to geographical distance. My study helped to increase my overall competency, especially in (mixed methodology) research, critical thinking, and academic writings. I was almost horrified when I looked at the essays I wrote during my bachelor's degree. I would have scored my own writings as F, I think my teachers were too lenient.

After I graduated, I focused my job hunting in development sector. At first I was optimistic, however that optimism quickly dissipated. I probably sent 200+ CVs to various NGOs, agencies related to development. Almost all of them never called me for an interview. I thought a graduate degree in development would help me get a job at the development sector since I had hard time applying for development related jobs after I graduated from my bachelor's degree. Turned out it was even harder as I lacked the "real" experience at development sector.

After realized that maybe because I never had a job at a development sector or agencies, I applied jobs at the private sector, since I thought maybe I should continue my career at public affairs industry since I quite liked it.

I didn't know what kind company Edelman was, and I dropped my CV there, however I forgot about it, and suddenly the HR director called me for an interview few months later. I never forgot the interview process, I was first interviewed by the CEO, and then the senior manager at public affairs (and I think I did quite well), however Takeo, my then-supervisor spotted my talent for research and I ended up working at Edelman's "Digital Intelligence Center", something I never learned before, and I ended up learning both traditional and digital research to solve our clients' problems related to communication.

To my surprise, Edelman also has Development Communication division, and bringing the clients that were highly relevant to what I studied. However as my main role was a researcher, there was a limit of what I could do and couldn't do.

After Edelman, I joined as a senior digital analyst at another agency, and a part of dedicated client team. Everyday I crunch numbers to help one of the biggest multinational company in Indonesia to track their digital marketing efforts.

My new job is not anywhere easier despite the strict focus, in fact, it's one of the most complicated reporting system I ever encountered, as our client tracks their marketing analytics from various sources, and there are no easy, automated ways to build a report. However, everyday I am learning the best practices of international-standard of digital marketing, their KPIs, and metrics that matter for clients as different clients have different objectives.

I enjoy what I am doing but at the same time I kinda miss the versatility of working with different clients, especially related to international relations and development. Gone the days when I need to write research proposals, writing for research and analysis, doing qualitative coding, reading regulatory affairs. Worsened because I am having a writer's block. My last published piece was June 2018, and I published nothing in the past 2 years, and that vacuum probably reflects my current state of mind (I shelved my dream to become a novelist after the publishers that wanted to publish my second novel went bankrupt. It happened twice).

2018 has been one of the most unexpected year of my career. This year turned out to be a better year by the end. However, I have been wondering if you were me, or in a similar position. Should you keep yourself relevant with what you previously studied, or just forget about it and don't let it define your career?