Success Stories
Elizabeth Elmore
Terry College & Grady College: August 2008
Assistant Director of Communications at the UGA Alumni Association
When I enrolled at The University of Georgia in 2004, I intended to major in international business. The summer after sophomore year, I studied abroad in Spain during the summer break. That experience was especially applicable since I was planning to major in international business. When I returned from Spain, I had lined up a week-long job shadow with a public relations firm in Nashville, Tenn. Those five days were enough to convince me that maybe my place in the corporate world was in communications instead of finance, accounting or real estate.
I returned to UGA and applied to both Terry and Grady colleges in order to build an educational background that would allow me to pursue a career in corporate communications. Throughout the entire job search process, the UGA Career Center was there to review my resume and help me determine whether public relations was the career path for my strengths. In the end, I applied for a job with McNeely Pigott and Fox Public Relations, the firm I had job shadowed with - and spend the next 4.5 years with them.
In 2012, I realized I didn't want to work for clients or issues that I wasn't passionate about, so I focused on finding a new job that would align my personal views and my professional interests. Today, I am working for the UGA Alumni Association and couldn't be happier. In the end, the lesson I learned was that you don't need to find your perfect career path right out of college - there is plenty of time to amend your plans and find the best fit for you.