Guest Sarah Howald Hughes , Dartmouth ’96, started playing hockey at age seven, at least a year after she wanted to. She was told girls couldn’t play in the league that young. When she was eligible she kept playing—with the boys—until going off to high school for junior and senior year, setting her sights on playing at the college level. Hockey got her to Dartmouth, which she ended up loving, despite the long hard hours of training, practicing and competing as a two-sport athlete. Though a formi...
Aug 30, 2021•19 min•Season 4Ep. 59
Guest Carrington Bradley , Dartmouth ’96, feels as though a number of happenstances, “twists of fate” as he calls them, have really helped shape the trajectory of his life. One of the earliest was when his mother stumbled across the ROTC scholarship application the day before it was due and—because it didn’t require an essay component—Carrington completed it. Getting that scholarship and joining the ROTC program at Dartmouth handed him the educational opportunity to study engineering and also to...
Aug 23, 2021•27 min•Season 4Ep. 58
Guest Adam Medros , Dartmouth ’96, was had taken a gap year in Germany before college, reading and thinking and trying to figure out who he was. An economics major who worked in the library at Tuck School of Business, he was introduced to the world of strategy consulting and ending up being one of the rare few who sought out that career path intentionally. A job interview during a basement pong game sealed the deal and set him off on the consulting route. When he finally got into industry, early...
Aug 16, 2021•27 min•Season 4Ep. 57
Guest Sansea Kaphan Jacobson , Dartmouth ’96, was assured of herself when she arrived at college, pre-med bound. But then she found Sanborn Library and let her love of literature guide her studies and put the pre-med dreams to bed. She took advantage of the corporate recruiting process to find her first job after college in the IT consulting world. She found, however, that she was more interested in impacting the people she served than the project outcomes. She decided to get back on track to th...
Aug 09, 2021•31 min•Season 4Ep. 56
Guest Kevin McGowan , Dartmouth ’96, says he was popular on campus because he drove Keg One. But it was more than the deliveries for Stinson’s that made him well-known and well-liked. Whether with his football teammates, classmates, or even his family, he has always prioritized the things that matter—nurturing relationships and doing the things you love. When he left college he hoped he would be happy with a good career and family. The career came in the form of multiple opportunities in the wor...
Aug 02, 2021•27 min•Season 4Ep. 55
Guest Micheal Zigmont , Dartmouth ’96, characterizes his college self as having been lost without even really knowing it. Graduating without a job was the manifestation of that. After six months living in his parents’ house, temping, he decided to try to land an analyst position on Wall Street, which he did. A quick test of the dot com world to make sure the grass wasn’t greener on the other side showed it wasn’t and he went right back to finance as though nothing happened. As he never burned hi...
Jul 26, 2021•31 min•Season 4Ep. 54
Guest Rose Lee , Dartmouth ’96, was psychology major, active in lots of extracurriculars. She didn't have a particular path in mind upon graduation, but she decided to leap into the unknown of consulting expressly because she didn't know anything about consulting and thought it would be a good challenge. After four years at a small firm followed by business school, that same pattern repeated itself. A female recruiter suggested that she take a look at the financial industry, seeing transferable ...
Jul 19, 2021•18 min•Season 4Ep. 53
Guest Drew Natenshon , Dartmouth ’96, was a chemistry major but considered himself lazy and didn’t see the immediate path to a career after college. He interviewed with a small technology consulting company and became employee #32. After peaking at over 1,000 employees, the IPO in the boom years allowed him to get a really nice sports car. When his company—along with the industry—tanked, he had to sell the car (and more), but said he learned a very good lesson about how businesses should and sho...
Jul 12, 2021•22 min•Season 4Ep. 52
Guest Sara Paisner , Dartmouth ’96, had a teacher who brought the sciences alive for her early in life. She was drawn to chemistry in particular, with its explosions and crystals and what seemed like magic. It seemed a logical path to study chemistry in college and go directly into a PhD program. But along the way, she learned that academic research wasn’t what she thought it would be. She chose her postdoc someplace that would put her close to industry—specifically the Research Triangle of Nort...
Jul 05, 2021•30 min•Season 4Ep. 51
Guest Jeff Botelho , Dartmouth ’96, had always been interested in languages. In college, he studied history and Spanish. When he studied abroad and realized that his interest and skill in learning languages could open the world to him, he knew he wanted a career that would allow him to use those skills. He began working in consumer goods in Gillette’s Latin American group, first making his Spanish-speaking colleagues in Boston look good and then working for the company in Mexico. For as much as ...
Jun 28, 2021•27 min•Season 4Ep. 50
Guest Maryam Kia-Keating , Dartmouth ’96, was keen to help students find their voice and build supportive communities as an undergraduate advisor and area coordinator in the residence halls. And she could see a life full of this sort of work with broader populations. But with a psychology major and volunteer activities such as sexual assault peer counselor, the honor code committee, and psychiatric care work, she kept having to confront the reactive end of the spectrum of care, where things had ...
Jun 21, 2021•32 min•Season 4Ep. 49
Guest Rob Hamilton , Dartmouth ’96, was already a musician before entering college and knew he wanted to major in music. But he also wanted to go deeper, understanding how and why sound affects us as humans. So double-majored with cognitive science. He also found his way to the Bregman Electronic Music Studio —not widely known outside of the electronic music scene, but considered a powerhouse by students of the genre due to its development of the Synclavier the first commercially available porta...
Jun 14, 2021•39 min•Season 4Ep. 48
Recently, ROADS TAKEN sat down to talk with Josh Marks about how his life has been full of happenstances that finally led him to meaningful work within independent schools. What we didn't talk about was his role as college bagpiper. Join Leslie Jennings Rowley as she talks to Josh about how he got into the bagpipes, how it's kept him connected to the college, and what evolution he's seen going back to campus twice a year for the last quarter century. Then, stick around for a special treat to mus...
Jun 09, 2021•10 min
Guest Josh Marks , Dartmouth ’96, remembers his college days as being marked by a self-unawareness and a happenstance that exposed him to interesting people, interesting extra-curriculars, and interesting academic pursuits. While it made for an enriching college experience, it didn’t set him up for an obvious path after graduation. After a handful of jobs that were good enough, and one that paid that for an MBA, he was helping a friend look for a teaching job when serendipity struck again. Looki...
Jun 07, 2021•32 min•Season 3Ep. 47
Guest Tracy Canard Goodluck , Dartmouth ’96, is a member of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin and also of Mvskoke Creek heritage and was raised as a strong Native woman in her urban communities of Utah and New Mexico. Freshman year of college illuminated how socio-economic disparities were affecting her beloved Native American communities, and the activist in her got fired up and, after a few terms away to process it all, came back to campus committed to do something about it. After a job in the Ha...
May 31, 2021•37 min•Season 3Ep. 46
Guest Woojin Kim , Dartmouth ’96, didn’t have a clear idea of how he wanted to approach college so he briefly considered being pre-med or pre-law. But after taking a broad range of courses, he realized history spoke to him and enjoyed it so much that he was considering a master’s degree in the discipline after college with an eye toward the professorate. Back at home preparing applications for the following year, he consulted the list of Dartmouth alumni in his area and planned to reach out to a...
May 24, 2021•17 min•Season 3Ep. 45
Guest Taran Lent , Dartmouth '96, knew he wanted to study engineering, even if he didn't see himself becoming an engineering. Learning how to scope a problem, build a toolkit of tactics and encyclopedia of methodologies, and solve real-world problems appealed to him. As he juggled the coursework and his role as captain of the varsity football team, he found a way to put the engineering mindset to action: He approached a slew of Hanover-area eateries—including the old favorites EBA's, Panda House...
May 17, 2021•27 min•Season 3Ep. 44
Guest Beth (Jordan) Mattingly , Dartmouth ’96, had thought she wanted to be a neurosurgeon so that she could investigate how and why people ended up being different before and after some unexpected event. But when she stumbled upon the field of human geography and how one’s location can have outsized impacts on opportunities, motivations and behaviors she was hooked. Ever more interested in the more expansive questions and implications of sociology, she pursued graduate work in that field and fo...
May 03, 2021•22 min•Season 3Ep. 43
Guest Liz Rawson was biologically-minded, but wasn't pre-med in college. The idea of doctoring to people just didn't appeal. Once she realized what was keeping her away wasn't the medicine part but the people part, she set her sights on veterinary school, even if she had to play catch-up a little. She got the work experience and extra training she needed in Boston to be able to apply and enrolled at Tufts. In school, she found what she didn't love (farm animals) and what she did (surgery), but h...
Apr 26, 2021•29 min•Season 3Ep. 42
Host Leslie Jennings Rowley wanted to take a moment to say thank you to our ROADS TAKEN listeners. "I know you are out there –Dublin to Abu Dhabi, Sao Paulo to Singapore to Vancouver to Rome, and all over the U.S. And I really appreciate that you keep coming back. "When I started this podcast, I wanted to share the stories of my classmates and how they’ve navigated their sometimes winding roads since college. I knew the stories would be as varied as the individuals telling them. I love that thes...
Apr 19, 2021•2 min
Guest John Barros journeyed to college from the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston and tried to become the best version of himself by participating in numerous activities and leadership roles. He went into the business world at an insurance company right after graduation, thinking that law school could help him further hone his worldview and the best way to be of service. Service came looking for him, though, in the form of a call from home. The Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative, a community dev...
Apr 12, 2021•22 min•Season 3Ep. 41
Guest Dave Kramer stayed in Hanover after graduation to complete the teacher preparatory program and answered a classified ad to teach in Colombia. He headed to Cali with a mind to reinvent himself but anticipated honing his Spanish and having an adventure. Finding both his life mate and an appreciation for the environment there, he became a passionate advocate for not only the environment but also Colombia as a place and people. But continued unrest at the turn of the century made his wife anxi...
Apr 05, 2021•31 min•Season 3Ep. 40
Guest Lisana Gabriel Brown started her career as a graphic designer but felt to constrained by how someone else thought things should look. An astute supervisor saw her technical skills and moved her into the world of IT. Though she had considered the corporate path “too buttoned up” in earlier days, she found that the corporate world—particularly banking—was the right fit and a progression of more and more technical roles led her into business continuity risk planning and disaster response. She...
Mar 29, 2021•24 min•Season 3Ep. 39
Guest Amy Peller , Dartmouth '96, could always be counted on to find the fun in a moment, whether meeting people on the way to the snowboarding lessons or performing magic in the campus pub. Throughout her career in consumer marketing and brand management, she tried to always keep that sense of fun and joy. Some employers, such as Mattel (where she worked on products from water guns to Matchbox cars), made it easy. Others, who wanted her to move too far from family or deal with layoffs, not so m...
Mar 22, 2021•29 min•Season 3Ep. 38
Guest Helene Sisti has always wanted to take in every experience life offers, whether in the classroom, on a field or on stage at an Aerosmith concert. Combining her love of sport with her interest in psychology, she found her way to sports psychology. But while pursuing a masters in kinesiology, an early class in neuroscience during opened her eyes to the world of research. She continued on for a PhD in neuroscience, looking specifically at the mind-body connection and how we learn. As all-seas...
Mar 15, 2021•26 min•Season 3Ep. 37
Guest Mark Griffin , Dartmouth '96, had two parents in the state department so had been used to lots of moves before boarding school in Austria. The promise of mountains and persuasive literature sealed the deal for Dartmouth. He loved the intellectual freedom the college afforded and he stumbled into philosophy to round out his genetic propensity toward government. Although he knew that public service was in his blood, he worried that the typical law career might pigeon-hole him. He read about ...
Mar 08, 2021•20 min•Season 3Ep. 36
Guest Monica Oberkofler Gorman , Dartmouth '96, had been accepted at Yale Law School and had earned a scholarship to study in Oxford, but her heart lay in public service work in DC so after graduation she took the opportunity of a White House internship—ill-timed, perhaps, given her shared name with another intern at that moment. And although she loved DC, she felt that she needed to see more of how the world worked before she would feel comfortable helping to shape policy. She went to Oxford an...
Mar 01, 2021•30 min•Season 3Ep. 35
Guest Shakari Cameron Byerly , Dartmouth '96, recognized that at her core she is someone who brings communities together, shines a light the diversity within them, and amplifies the voices so all viewpoints are heard. She did that in her youth and in college through student assembly work and with the cultural communities that she was a part. She figured that she would have a future in public interest law or public service. But a straight path to law school didn’t feel right and she served the co...
Feb 22, 2021•23 min•Season 3Ep. 34
Guest Will Uppington , Dartmouth '96, had a desire to do good in the world, so naturally thought he would follow in his father’s footsteps into medicine. But after a few too many hospital experiences he thought there might be another way to be of service and pursued a double major in economics and government. Worried this might not give him quite enough hard skills, he spent senior year dabbling in Chinese and math and coding. Despite these new skills and yet without any role models in the busin...
Feb 15, 2021•26 min•Season 3Ep. 33
Guest Shannon Smith-Bernardin , Dartmouth '96, knew she needed to get out of Maine, as the only prospects she saw for herself there were nursing and teaching. With two duffle bags and $400 in her pocket, she landed in Los Angeles and then landed a string of jobs that didn’t feed her soul. In supporting a friend through rehab, she learned more about her own past with alcohol and co-dependent relationships that helped her reflect on how her skills and interests in helping others could be realized ...
Feb 08, 2021•37 min•Season 3Ep. 32
