A Disheartening Meeting

Posted on November 6, 2010 2 Comments

As I’ve mentioned here before, discounted tuition toward an advanced degree was one of the big reasons I took a job at a local university. And recently, someone in my network advised me to get moving on a ten-year plan before time passes me by.

One of the reasons I’ve been holding off on grad school involves the actual degree. Initially I thought an MBA with a focus in marketing would suit my career goals, but as I’ve been thinking about marketing career paths I’m not entirely sure that’s the route I want to take. The point of marketing, after all, is to “sell stuff” (as a friend pointed out), and often in marketing you’re stuck selling things people don’t necessarily want or need. (See Alex Bogusky’s recent write up in Fast Company and read the part about shilling for Burger King.)  However, as far as careers go, the benefits of an MBA are that I really do enjoy the marketing process and the people who work in the field, an advanced degree would greatly increase my earnings potential, and I do need to learn certain marketing lessons that I didn’t get in my communications undergrad program (though I did minor in marketing).

An alternate path started to take shape, however, as I learned about the field of public health. Most of my communications and public relations career has been health focused. I’ve worked with some of the world’s biggest over-the-counter drug companies and non-profits to develop programs designed to educate Americans about certain diseases and conditions, like headaches, heartburn, digestive diseases, high cholesterol, and more. And I’ve loved those experiences –  using my strengths to deliver health and education messages has been a natural marriage of my interests and my skills. The field of public health seemed like a natural progression – especially after attending a lecture last week to hear former US Surgeon General David Satcher speak about the need for health professionals. I felt inspired (I stared dreaming about how I could help work towards a healthier America, how I could impact  obesity and related conditions such as heart disease and diabetes) and so made an appointment to talk with our school’s public health program to validate whether my skills were appropriate and what I’d need to do to get into the program.

It was a lively conversation. Clearly my interests and job experience were spot on. However, I saw a major red flag. The public health program I was considering is clearly aimed at physicians. The admissions woman kept talking about how as a communicator, I would be a “boundary spanner” in helping communicate messages about health to the public.  ”You could write press releases and make brochures,” said the admissions woman. Trouble is, with a communications degree, I can already do that. And I did just that – like eight years ago as an account executive. I told her, “You know, that really is right up my alley. But I left my old firm as a vice president.”

She got the message. “You probably did that right out of college, huh?”  I told her I did.  She then told me that 90 percent of public health professionals don’t have degrees in public health. Basically what I’ve been doing with my career is public health, just without the degree (and usually attached to a product). And therein lies another problem; ancillary vs. mainline.

For those of you new to the concept, mainline employees are the decision makers and the people who keep a company running. Think about an airline: you need the pilots to fly the plane, the engineers to keep the plane moving, finance people to keep the bills paid and executives to steer the company and make the tough decisions. Then you have the ancillary folks. The folks who help the company, but aren’t integral to the product or service… the public relations people, the communicators, the marketers. Sure, as a communicator myself I could make the case that without good communications and marketing, the company as a whole will fail. But when there are tough decisions to be made about the direction of the company, trust me, no one is going to ask the advice of the communications people the vast majority of the time (although they probably should!).

My role at the moment is ancillary. And I find myself wishing I had a greater impact. However, the admissions woman was basically saying that since I’m not a researcher or a physician, my role would basically stay the same. Rather than being the spokesperson, expert, policy maker, or program manager, with my background, I’d just be the communicator. It sounded like fluff. It was fluff. In this field, I’d always be fluffy. Not only would I not be working to shape policy based on my own findings (since I have no science background), but without the MD, RD, PhD, or even a master’s in some type of science, my earning potential may go down, not up. (“You could apply for a communications internship at the NIH!” was the worst possible thing I could have heard at this meeting.)

So time to regroup. There is one woman in public health with a communications background at my university that I’d like to meet. She’s doing some really interesting research and I think her perspective would be helpful. But my interest is fading fast in this degree. Ultimately, if I want to help people get off their butts and on their feet, moving, and eating healthy, there may be better ways to steer my career in that direction. I could start my own foundation, for instance, or simply look to add in some volunteering in my off days while I continue to grow my communications career. After all, I could argue that the greatest way to make an impact is to take the money I’m earning and funnel it into projects that are already making headway.  Time to look back at that MBA and see what skills I can pick up that can help me advance my end goals …. which are not, certainly, to add a bunch a debt that will get me to where I already am.

Category: Career
   Tags: Grad school

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