September 18, 2003
- Radio,
radio
The jump from commercial TV to public radio has made WXPN General Manager Roger LaMay much happier. He even finds the controversies more interesting.
- Summer cram courses move to fall
- Service changes aim to lure riders
- U.S. falls on social progress index
- Course raises doctors' cultural consciousness
- A song in the key of LIFE
- Eternal vigilance is the price of security
- Give it up for Aaron!
- Out and About: Beyond belief
STAFF Q&A/Call it luck
or call it craft, but Amy
Calhoun has managed to float into her perfect job
“My students have actually taught me almost everything I know about this field.”
BY SANDY SMITH
AMY CALHOUN Position: Length
of service: Other
stuff: |
“I actually have often thought that my career was sort of as if there’s a river and I’m standing on the bank, and various rafts come by, and people are on the raft and they wave and say ‘Hi! Jump on!’
“And I do, and I don’t know where it’s taking me, and I get further downstream, and I get off and another raft appears.”
And in this fashion Amy Calhoun (C’82) has floated from a political science major at Penn to a short career as an artist, a job pitching memberships to the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, an admissions officer position in Undergraduate Admissions and two academic advising posts, first with the University Scholars Program and now as director of the Digital Media Design (DMD) program.
As she explained in our interview, the job she holds actually makes use of just about all the insights she picked up along the way.
Q. Why did you decide to go for this position?
A. When I first graduated from Penn, I worked as an artist for my first
two years out of college. The interesting thing about that was, it’s
also telling stories, but with pictures.
But the odd thing about being a painter was never communicating with
people. You sat in a studio somewhere by yourself and you painted, and
then you presented it as a finished product.
What’s really interesting about [DMD] is it’s interactive…it’s
the kind of work that is usually done in teams, because the scope of
making, let’s say, a five-minute animation can take months and
months of work. It’s unbelievably difficult, because it’s
math.
Q. Why did you major in political science given your post-college career
and your current position?
A. Before I came to Penn, I went to Franklin College in Lugano, Switzerland
for two years. I went there because I knew I was interested in political
science and in art, and I thought Switzerland and being in Europe was
a good place to study both. I was particularly interested in European
and Russian [politics] and I was very interested in painting.
When I came back and transferred to Penn, it was easier to become a political
science major with the transfer credits that I had than to become a fine
arts major.
Q. How did you go from a career in art to working in Undergraduate Admissions
at Penn?
A. After I worked in art for two years, as I said, [I did not like] that
idea of working in a vacuum, and also the art that sold well was art
that I hated. Everything that I thought was hideous was what people wanted
to buy.
...And I got paid a lot of money and I thought, Something’s gone terribly wrong. I don’t like the art that I do. I work completely in solitude, and yeah, I think I need to try something else.
So I went to work for the [Greater Philadelphia] Chamber of Commerce. I used to cold-call people to ask them if they would like to join the Chamber of Commerce. It’s very important to have a job at some point in your life that you hate so that you can figure out what you like.
At that time, they still interviewed people in Undergraduate Admissions, and because I had been a transfer student from an international perspective and I spoke two languages, they asked me if I would come and interview transfer students on campus. After a year interviewing and reading applications for transfer admissions I applied for an admission officer job.
Q. Has it been difficult to adapt to all the technology in your position
with DMD?
A. It’s been really interesting. My students have actually taught
me almost everything I know about this field and that’s been sort
of an ideal situation for both of us. …They could see I was a complete
novice and they would sort of shake their heads and say, “Sit down,
we’ll explain it to you.”
When I first came to Engineering and I would go to meetings, it was just so interesting. Meetings started on time, they had agendas, and they ended on time. It was a fascinating and completely different world, and they used math analogies for everything. I never used a math analogy in my life.
After a year of being there, I made a math analogy in a meeting and I thought, Oh my gosh, it’s finally happened!
Q. Have you ever used political science analogies in this job?
A. All the time. And they do understand those, because they understand
that in this program, operating between three different schools [Annenberg,
Design and Engineering], trying to get your curriculum set and find the
time for [your classes]…just the juggling between departments and
getting people to let you do what you need to do in the time in which
you need to do it is very political. And so I think they’ve learned
a lot about political science. They think that’s part of a Penn
education.
Q. What’s the greatest pleasure in this job?
A. Honestly, seeing it work. Seeing my students actually reach a level
of success in getting their work out there and the pride that they have
when they finish a project. Seeing when we make suggestions to the computer
science faculty about curriculum, they take them.
Q. And the greatest challenge?
A. [long pause] Oh, I know what the greatest challenge is. Trying to
build a budget for a brand-new program that only existed for a few years
and that nobody was even sure would fly.
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