Remember Our Faces of The Future? Here’s What They’re Up To Now

ICYMI, we announced our first-ever Faces of The Future program in partnership with Neutrogena® this past summer. The initiative honored twenty recent grads who are on their way to making real change in our world, from entrepreneurship and innovation to education and empowerment. The passion that Neutrogena® has for honoring and empowering our community has reached new levels, as they are the launch sponsor of the latest Her Campus Media platform: Generation Hired. On Generation Hired, we’re changing the recruiting game, by having recruiters reach out to users instead of having users apply for jobs. In honor of this innovation in recruiting, we had the chance to catch up with three of the Faces of The Future winners to hear about their experiences and advice as young professionals in 2020. 

Giana Darville

This summer, Giana completed a postgraduate internship with BCW Global’s Public Affairs and Crisis Practice. She was also on the winning HAROLD Intern Project team that created a consumer-driven PR campaign. This fall, Giana also accepted an 18-month role as one of Truth Initiative’s two Youth Board Liaisons, officially beginning in December. In this role, she will serve as a liaison to Truth Initiative’s Board of Directors on behalf of young people, attending board meetings, events, and activities, serving on a board committee and providing her perspective as a young person to the Board regarding the organization’s efforts. She also plans to attend graduate school in the next few years.

When asked if she had any advice for the Her Campus audience, she said “I truly believe that career success goes hand in hand with community engagement, and every effort that I’ve made in helping others has come back to me tenfold in both opportunities and meaningful relationships. My advice is to intentionally set lofty, almost-unimaginable goals and enjoy the surprising journey of reaching them. But, always find a way to give back with the best parts of you, even when it’s inconvenient. I promise you, everything else will fall into place.”

Sharee Stephan

Sharee Stephan shared that since being named a Face of The Future, she has learned so much about herself and has gained a new confidence in her goals. At the same time, she shared that everything hasn’t gone according to plan in this whirlwind of a year. After graduation, she had planned to visit three states where she had work opportunities and pick a location that felt right to start her next chapter. She shared that she cried a lot as she reworked her plans but she overcame these hurdles and got to work! Even against the odds of a pandemic, she is currently working on her business Sharegenius and as a micro-influencer. This time and experience as a 2020 graduate has also inspired her to write and vlog to normalize these feelings for her peers. She said she is still dreaming big and working towards her dreams every day. 

Her advice for anyone who may be feeling down, confused or stagnant is, “Don’t give up and never abandon the dream just rework the plan. Success is measured by what you feel not what society deems success. It’s the perfect time to try something new and finish something you are working on.”

AnnMarie Gajdos

AnnMarie is currently studying for the LSAT while working as a mental health Communications Coordinator for a social work agency to aid immigrant communities suffering from depression and anxiety as a result of COVID-19. She is also a We Power NYC Ambassador for NYC Votes, the nonpartisan voter engagement branch of the New York City Campaign Finance Board. She has used social media activism to share educational voting resources with underrepresented peers to fight voter suppression and get out the count in diverse youth communities. In her spare time, she has been using her podcast Room 3228 to create a safe space for young adults to discuss the unique challenges they face as recent graduates amid a global pandemic.
 
Her advice for members of the Her Campus community is: “Don’t be afraid to try something new, no matter how risky it might seem. Planning is important, but when your plans go astray, as they often do, be sure to wholeheartedly embrace the changes coming your way. As long as you remain committed to your goals, success will happen in time.”

Katherine Waugh

Over the summer, Katherine started her career as an engineer with the Margaret Ingels Engineering Development Program at Raytheon Technologies Corporation. In this program, she will have four rotations of six months each across the different Raytheon Technologies business units. She is currently in the last few weeks of my first rotation as a systems project engineer in the Air Management Systems department of Collins Aerospace – Power & Controls. In this role, she has supported the redesign and qualification of cabin air conditioning and temperature control system hardware on the Boeing 777X aircraft. Her next rotation will be as a mechanical design engineer in the Mission Systems department of Collins Aerospace.
 
As a new employee in the remote-work environment, she shared, “I have found it extremely important to be an effective communicator to be successful. From day one of my current rotational assignment, I made sure to ask relevant questions to my team members and to technical subject matter experts – both so I could complete tasks efficiently but also so I could begin learning in more detail about the reasons for certain design features and decisions. I also became comfortable with picking up the phone and scheduling meetings to get information; making connections with co-workers early on by being curious and motivated enabled me to get up to speed quickly, even while working from home. So, while it may sound somewhat cliché, never be afraid to ask too many questions, especially if working remotely.”
 
Looking to take your career to the next level? Sign up for Generation Hired, presented by Neutrogena®, here.