Name: Brianna Manzelli (Bree West)
Hometown: South Hamilton, MA
Current Residence: San Diego, CA
Undergrad Major: Politics
When prompted with the question, “what do you want to do when you graduate?” my first thought is always to respond, “hopefully getting hired to do what I love.” Though this may seem like a long shot coming out of college, just after a few short years, CUA Alum Brianna Manzelli, is living proof that making a career out of your passion is closer than you might think.
Taking the world (literally, the world cause she travels A LOT) by storm, Bree has made her hobby of blogging into a business, and has since landed her dream job as a social media marketing specialist in San Diego. So like…how did she do that?
When Bree graduated from CUA in 2013, she decided to go into politics and started working for a lobbying firm right in downtown D.C. After starting this job, however, she soon realized that her day job “just wasn’t going to cut it” and that she needed a creative outlet. Bree has always loved to read blogs in her spare time, and to read about other people’s lives. After becoming sick of the daily office routine, she decided to start her own page as a way for her to decompress, and ended up falling in love with it. When she got laid off around six months ago, she made her blog her full-time job and started working for herself. Blogging has become an entirely new journey and adventure for Bree where she gets to meet and connect with new people; similar reasons as to why she loves to travel. Though her page started just as a hobby, as her audience began to grow, so did her excitement for her site. As she started to put more and more effort into it, her blog began to take off. Having become, “a beast of its own” Bree began to look at her blog as more of a business than just an after-work hobby.
Another one of her passions in addition to blogging, is her constant itch to travel. Because she works for herself, Bree finds that her business gives her more freedom to travel, which is good considering it is her obsession. She has traveled to several different places in Europe, and most recently, made her way across the world to see Bali and Australia. When asked about why she loved to travel, Bree explained, “I love to meet new people, experience new cultures, and learn about their stories.” One country in particular that holds a special place in Bree’s heart is Finland, where she studied for a period of time in high school.
“I just think it is such an incredible country, and its such an underrated place to visit. I just adore [it].” Bree said.
Though picking a favorite destination feels impossible because she doesn’t want to discredit any other place she has been (because they have all been wonderful…she didn’t want to insult her other trips), Bree explained that her most recent and favorite adventures have been in Greece and Bali. One of the more crazy things she has done in her travels was when she spontaneously decided to book it to Australia for two weeks instead of going home like she had originally planned.
Though Bree has learned quite a bit in the years following graduation, she also recalls that Catholic taught her a good deal as well. One of the biggest things Bree learned from CUA was not only how to write (something she felt like she did not know how to do as well prior to Catholic) and that CUA has taught her how to build a community. Bree recalled that one of her favorite parts of CUA was her study abroad experience. She studied in London, where she got to work for the Parliament, as well as travel around to several different parts of Europe.
“I loved being able to travel around and experience things that not a lot of 20-year-old Americans really get to experience.” Bree said.
In addition to being a politics major, Bree was also a sister of Catholic’s local sorority, Kappa Tau Gamma. She said KTG was probably her favorite non-academic group she was involved with at CUA, because she met so many awesome girls that she wouldn’t have connected with had she not joined. She felt that KTG offered her opportunities to do a lot of different service and other fun activities.
Approaching her graduation, Bree said she never felt like she could quite imagine where she saw herself in the next few years to come, and still feels the same. She had a bit of trial and error before she realized what she really wanted to do; some of these “trials” included working for a wedding planner in Disney World.
When asked what her advice would be to graduating seniors, she replied, “Follow your passions and follow your dreams…as corny as that sounds. Now is the time where we can do that. Early twenties is the time where we can try different careers out, and figure out what we want to do,” she said. “You’re never going to know if you want to do that for the rest of your life, or if you’re good at it even, until you actually have that real-world experience.” Bree explained that it is so important to remember that we are still so young, and that even when we graduate we don’t need to have everything figured out (and yes, she was one of those people who believed that too). Bree said, “You feel like everything has to be done, and its just not that way…its OK to change your mind. You don’t have to do what you studied in college, you don’t have to have everything figured out.”
You can follow Bree’s lifestyle blog by going to: bree-west.com
Follow her on Instagram: @breewest