The MacCast Unconventional — Alexander

Alexander (’16, ’17) tried a lot of jobs in pursuit of figuring out what he liked to do

Now contributing editor at the Literary Review of Canada and PhD student, he says he’s discovered that he’s most passionate about ideas

After graduation, Alexander was a chocolatier, a sales associate at a shoe store, a drummer in a metal band, and was even a knight at Medieval Times in Toronto (but only for a day). All of the twists and turns were by design and in an effort to experiment and see what kind of career path he’d really like to follow.

“I realized that I still didn’t know anything, so I should just keep my options open and experiment and try a bunch of different jobs,” he says. “And there’s no better way of learning than doing…so I did a bunch of weird zany jobs for a while.”

What all the job opportunities taught Alexander was that he much prefers the world of ideas over a world of sensory experiences such as building or cooking (even though he’s currently trying to push himself to be a better home cook).

“The sort of abstract world of the academy is more appealing to me because it helps me get to bigger ideas,” says Alexander.

In this episode of Unconventional, Alexander describes all the ups and downs of a career journey led by discovery rather than a predetermined plan of events.

McMaster has more than 210,000 alumni living in 140 countries around the world, and they are some of the most amazing people you would ever want to meet. The Unconventional podcast will introduce some of our alumni who are working — in the arts, as cutting-edge entrepreneurs, leading the way in health, education, technology and more — to make our world a brighter place in their own unique way. Download the latest episode, or catch up if you’ve missed one, on Apple, Spotify, or Soundcloud.