From History to Digital Media: Katherine Moore ’09
Katherine Moore ’09 applied the skills she learned majoring in history to a career in the emerging field of digital media. She is the Web Content Manager for Protect Your Bubble, Inc., a part of Assurant Solutions. In this role, she helps companies market their products and services through web and social media sites and other digital media. Starting with a temporary job as a web content writer for an Atlanta company, she has steadily advanced in her field. She found her current position when a recruiter saw her profile on Linked In and contact her.
The History Major Advantage
Katherine says that a history major might seem unlikely preparation for a career in digital media, but she believes her history major was perfect training for her current career. She says, “You know, people think that all you can do with a history major is teach, but that’s such a narrow view. The study of history is essential to the human experience; it’s how we learn from our mistakes, see patterns that will affect our future, and how we grow. Digital media is an ever evolving, rapidly changing industry. It requires you to examine both the traditional and ‘historical’ marketing ideals and transform them into new means of communication, while learning from the pitfalls of marketing’s past and finding new ways to connect to an audience.
Classic Skills, New Setting
“One of the biggest lessons digital media has taught companies is the importance of story telling–In essence, historians are the story tellers and story keepers of the world. I’ve taken my experience from cultivating, studying, and preserving the stories from our history– from the rural South to the British colonization of Australia–and used it to cultivate and tell a company’s story to potential consumers.”
Hone your life skills. Pursue the arts of reading, writing, communicating, and speaking.
The most important skills that the history major taught her, Katherine says, were skills in research and writing: “Any History Major from Converse College will tell you that you will live by your pen and your reading glasses while pursuing your major–we read and write as or much more than any other major. Honing my writing skills and study methods has helped me to really dive into projects more quickly within my team and to quickly digest information and needs and transform them into executed copy, story boards, or video scripts.”
Breaking Into Digital Media
Her advice for a student considering a career in the burgeoning field of digital media: “Do. Not. Study. Digital. Media. Do Not. Instead, hone your life skills. Pursue the arts of reading, writing, communicating, and speaking. Then, you can start pursuing media.”