Amanda Schaeper

Finding my path

As one year ends and another begins. In January of 2021 I knew it was time for me to share my journey from classroom to tech. I assumed other educators had pivoted their career in one way or another towards a different career path. I just couldn’t envision how common this really was, so I started compiling the steps that I took to make my career pivot happen.

First of all let’s establish why you are here: 1. You want to know how educators can add value to your workplace in non-traditional roles. 2. You ARE the educator seeking the solution to closing the classroom door and implementing your transferable knowledge into a career and industry you are truly passionate about.

To start understanding the added value having an educator on your team can bring I want to first highlight: You are not restricted to roles outside of the classroom but still traditionally tied to education. I fundamentally believe there is a huge opportunity for curriculum designers and EdTech for those in search of that path. While I did spend a few short months in roles with these titles I found there was an even greater chance of expanding into other industries all together.

I specialize in financial operations, with a specific interest in compliance/risk & controls. With more than 3 years of internal audit experience in my tool box I can draw clear connections between the types of skills required to implement instruction, create effective performance assessments, and how this pairs well with internal audit methodology and deriving root cause analysis that improves audit scores.

They key to breaking into any industry is knowing your way around the “language”. There are so many approaches to learn this aspect but if I had to be brutally honest I highly recommend simply studying that space. Find articles, ones that draw on knowledge, peer reviewed, and supported by the community. Network with those well versed on the topics you want to explore and make note of the verbiage during communication. It will be your mission to find connections between the language in your current role and how it can be demonstrated in your future role. The most successful transition is supported by a good understanding of the industry translation.

My next post will focus on the sites I have implored which helped me translate my educator language into wording the financial industry understood and accepted.

Onward & upward friends!

Published

I finally hit, “publish” and who knew how extremely terrifying & thrilling it would feel all at once. I started working on this site over the summer and with each passing week I kept telling myself just publish the page.

I always had a reason to avoid this final step. The imagery wasn’t good enough, I didn’t have enough content, or my true authentic self wouldn’t show through. There was also the technical learning curve of linking each page to the next, did I like the flow, would my viewer be able to navigate with ease?

Then came the doubt. Do I put an address? Does it even matter if no one ever finds their way here, am I not legit since I do not consider myself to be a content creator?

What I realized today at almost 1am is that there is never a perfect landing but there are a few steps one can take to ensure you stick the best landing possible. My reason for being here is not to be web developer or content creator.

My reason-my why is to share my professional career journey in hopes it one day helps another fellow educator looking to pivot or anyone who is longing for that career passion but cannot find it in their current industry. My hope is that by openly sharing my journey I am able to spark some bravery in others to pursue their passion. I didn’t have all the answers when I hit, “publish” tonight. I certainly don’t think I will find them all here or even days, weeks later.

What I do know is this, in order to discover the next chapter I had to close the old one. The old chapter for me was leaving this page in edit mode for more than 3 months. The new chapter in this story was hitting post and seeing how things evolve from here.

This post will not be my last. Only the first one to ever be created under, “live page mode” and I intended to keep unraveling this self journey to see where I end up!

Welcome to My Journey

If you are here today then it is highly possible you might be slightly curious about my career. More specifically, how did I pivot my career from the Education field to Fintech. It would be nearly impossible, almost an injustice to try and explain in one post over ten years of progression away from my career that I planned so hard for as an undergraduate to working in a highly competitive field with a background pretty unfound by many of my peers.

I created this site for more multiple reasons, reasons which I feel are my foundational basis in my career and person life. To very briefly explain: I have always been a main source of contact for anything related to transferring knowledge. In every professional role I been been the employee who was the go-to for training new hires, explaining complex processes, creating decks or demonstrations to present to others less familiar with my field. I really enjoy being part of a persons learning journey-especially in the financial industry.

Over the last couple of years I’ve moved into management level roles were I have been asked more than once to help build a new team, train on a process flow, lead on a new project, or find a way to design material that measures KPI’s.

I plan to explain in more detail completely what made me want to transition, how I got here, and what I am doing today but for now this is my brand: I am a former Educator knee deep in the world of Fintech and I am loving every moment of it.