IC News

On November 29, the Ithaca College Women in Communications, Women in Sport and Women in Finance organizations hosted the “She Emerges” panel discussion, where three alumnae spoke on difficulties women can find in the workplace and offered advice to students searching for jobs and internships.

The panel featured Uzma Rawn ’06, senior vice president of Global Corporate Partnerships at Major League Baseball; Katie Williams ’14, business and program specialist at BNY Mellon Investment Management; and Amanda Livingston ’17, internal communications and social media coordinator at Scholastic.

One of the traits all three women found helpful as they sought to develop their careers was persistence, particularly in networking.

One of the traits all three women found helpful as they sought to develop their careers was persistence, particularly in networking.

“It really is a lot about who you know,” Livingston said. “It’s not that I didn’t deserve the internship, but I worked really hard to network with people that I knew were where I wanted to be and have a sponsor or mentor.”

Livingston got her current job with Scholastic and various other internships thanks in part to connections she made after attending a New York Women in Communications conference — the parent organization of IC Women in Communications — when she was 16 years old, and by reaching out to people on LinkedIn.  

Williams agreed that taking the time to network, can help a student find the perfect job.

“I think senior year I spent time every week at least reaching out to alumni, having coffee with a professor, or eating with somebody who came to Career Services,” she said.

In her role, Rawn says she’s had many people reach out to her, but purposely does not respond to those who know her the first time they get in contact.

“I want to see if they’re aggressive enough to follow-up at least one or two more times and be like ‘Hey, can I get time on your calendar,’” she said. “Because then I know that they really want it.”   

That message resonated with the attendees. Melissa Buxton ’22, a business administration major with concentrations in finance and marketing, is the co-president and co-founder of Women in Finance.

“I think as females, a lot of the time, we think we’re overstepping or nagging or being annoying, so I thought that was a really great point that they made,” she said. “Just because you’re being assertive and ambitious does not mean it should be taken in a negative connotation or that you’re being too aggressive or too pushy.”

In addition to this discussion, Williams said that during her time at IC, she received advice from a few of her professors who encouraged her to go into a career helping people to figure out what she wanted to do.

“I think the business school does a phenomenal job at telling people that finance people did trading, accounting majors did accounting and management—you manage,” she said. “But I really had no idea what jobs were in finance.”

Alexia Michitti ’25, a business administration major with a sports management concentration, found the different perspectives beneficial.

“It was really awesome just to get an inside scoop on how these women see the field and their process of getting to where they are,” she said. “Hearing all these different perspectives helps me sort through what I’m interested in down the road.”

That was the goal of Buxton, Anna Costa ’22, president of Women in Communications and Katelyn Kohler ’21, president of Women in Sport, who worked together to organize the event.