What a long, strange journey it’s been
Reflecting on his path from education to tech consulting, Jay Young shares insights and tips for successful career transitions.
September 2002. As a freshman entering college, I faced one of the most difficult decisions of my life: selecting a career path. I had my doubts, my concerns, my anxieties. In the end, I chose premed. One might say that I chose poorly; however, looking back I think that perhaps I tried too soon to make this impactful decision.
By spring, after taking several courses, I thought I might be more interested in psychology. In fall 2023, I conceded to family pressures and tried my hand at computer science. (Fast-forward 20 years and I wish I would have stuck this out.) I was also very interested in journalism (after all, Ohio University has one of the best journalism schools in the United States). Ultimately, in June 2007, I graduated with a degree in education, majoring in English language arts.
But this piece isn’t all about the past, nor is it all about the present or the future. It’s about individual moments, captured in time. Microcosms contributing to the greater end. Each decision I made was a stepping stone to where I am today.
Fast-forward to 2022 and I made another life-altering decision: to pursue a career in consulting.
My name is James (Jay) Young, and I’m a Tableau consultant at Slalom. Tableau, data visualization, Salesforce, Python, SQL — doesn’t sound much like teaching high school English, does it?
In this blog, I’ll share pivotal points that shaped my career trajectory as well as lessons learned along the way for anyone considering making their own career transition.
It’s been a journey, to say the least.
The precipice of change
Listen to your heart; it rarely leads you astray. But be wary of your mind, as it will make you second-guess yourself.
After graduating from Ohio University, I taught for six years and loved (nearly) every minute of it. (I can’t honestly say I loved every minute of grading essays — who could?) While teaching, I decided to pursue a master’s degree in education administration. My career accelerated rapidly from there: I spent one year as a high school assistant principal, two years as a high school principal, and six years as a district coordinator of gifted education and federal programs. Fifteen years in education, countless memories, amazing students, fantastic colleagues, two degrees, and one post-baccalaureate certificate. I even contemplated entering a doctoral program at one point.
Dr. Young does have a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?
From my first days in the classroom to my final days as a district coordinator, I found myself being a resource for colleagues for all things tech — instructional technology, PowerPoint, Excel … you name it. If something broke, “I bet Jay can help fix it.” If some tech was malfunctioning, “Ask Jay, he can probably help you out.” And I could. Usually. Need some data wrangled or formatted? Need some code to help automate a function in Google Sheets? Just ask.
It helped that some of my best friends were in the IT department. You couldn’t introduce a piece of new technology without me getting my hands on it and experimenting, seeing what it was capable of. But it didn’t stop with work. Some of my best friends in my personal life also worked in technology. And my hobbies outside of work to this day often involve tinkering with electronics, building, coding, or scripting something. The pieces were falling into place.
Then COVID-19 changed the world.
The crossroads
Don’t give up. Believe in yourself. And never be afraid to try something new.
During my time as a district coordinator, I found myself more and more reliant on data, while finding the data less and less reliable. I’d often get massive, unruly Excel files full of student data that needed to be wrangled. I’d be manipulating data exports to create a new file to upload into a different system. I’d be trying to conduct data reviews, root-cause analyses, and share data with principals or district administration, and tools like Excel and Google Sheets (even with scripts) just felt inadequate.
Enter Tableau.
In autumn 2020, many of us began returning to the office from the COVID-19 shutdown. And though the year started out much like the previous one, things just felt … different. I began conducting an equity analysis on the gifted education programming for my district — a passion project with lofty implications that also resulted in my first Tableau dashboard.
I barely knew the program, but I learned quickly. And my first dashboard, while rough around the edges, was a great start. In a matter of moments, I could see the distribution of our gifted population on a map of our district. I could see the distribution of gifted students by gender, by socioeconomic status, by age/grade, by building. My superintendent was impressed, to say the least. And I found myself yearning to learn more about Tableau and data analytics in general.
Some subsequent conversations with a good friend led me toward data science and edX, and I began taking courses online in the evenings. Fundamentals of Python, “Introduction to R” … And then I saw a new professional certificate offering on Coursera.
Amazing how well the personalized advertising works, isn’t it?
Coursera’s Google Data Analytics Professional Certificate program helped me learn the fundamentals of SQL, R programming, and Tableau, as well as some foundational analytics knowledge. It was the kick start that I needed. It ignited the spark that led me toward the greatest risk of my life: leaving my career of fifteen years behind to start anew.
But not before diving headfirst into everything DataCamp had to offer on Tableau, SQL, and Python. My hunger for knowledge was insatiable.
The decision
Ambivalence is defined as having conflicting feelings toward something.
We often hear the glamorous side of career journeys: increased pay, better benefits, remote work, personal satisfaction, intellectual stimulation … You’ve probably seen hundreds of Reels and TikTok videos about it — the list goes on and on. But what we don’t hear about as often are the other potential impacts of changing careers: giving up your retirement, taking a pay cut, starting over at entry level, leaving behind your colleagues and friends …
Never before had I felt so excited and also so incredibly terrified as when I accepted the job offer to join Slalom’s data discovery and visual analytics team. Anxiety nearly overwhelmed me as I submitted my resignation, leaving the only career I had known my entire adult life. But something within me whispered that I had made not only the right decision but the best decision for myself and my family.
But just because this was the best decision for me doesn’t mean it will be best for everyone. What we do with our lives and our careers is a deeply personal decision.
It’s a big decision.
Take your time; don’t rush into it. But also, be open to change. Don’t be afraid to trust your intuition and pursue your own version of happiness.
Finding success
Do not let yourself slip into complacency. Continue feeding your craving for knowledge, lest it be lost forever.
If I had simply grown complacent the moment I accepted a position in my new career, pushing aside the drive and ambition I had when I was pursuing it, I wouldn’t be where I am today. Accepting the offer for your first position in a new career is exciting, but it’s the first step of many. And if being an educator taught me nothing else, it taught me to never stop learning. So that’s what I committed to myself: to keep learning new things.
Nearly two years and eight certifications later, here I am, and I’m not finished yet!
But it’s not just about the certifications or the learning; it’s about the relationships you build along the way. With your colleagues, with your partners, and with your clients. Introvert or not, anyone who knows me knows that I won’t say no to supporting a new project, leading a meeting, presenting to my peers, or, apparently, writing a blog article. And along the way, I’ve encountered many amazing people who continue to inspire me, teach me, learn with me, learn from me, and support me.
These relationships are as important to success as learning, so never discount either.
Another piece of advice I can offer to anyone starting a new career: find an organization that not only accepts your unique path but embraces it. Find an organization that provides you with opportunities to grow in a safe and supportive environment. Surround yourself with others who understand and respect the challenging decision you’ve made and are willing to support you through the ups and downs. There will be both.
What success I’ve experienced in my new career can be fully attributed to the support of those around me: my family, my people leaders, my teammates, my mentors, my colleagues, and my friends. There are too many to name.
But most importantly: believe in yourself. I couldn’t have done this if I didn’t genuinely believe that I was doing the right thing. I couldn’t have done this if I didn’t believe I was enough.
That’s not to say there won’t be impostor syndrome.
There are more instances than I dare to recall where I feel like I’m pretending to be a consultant, a data analyst, a data visualization specialist, a Python coder … you name it. But the feedback from my colleagues and clients serves as reinforcement, helping me slowly push aside these feelings of self-doubt.
Epilogue
But now I see that all these were small steps toward where I am today, leading me to where I’m going.
It’s interesting … back in 2003, I decided that computer science wasn’t for me. (Mostly because of calculus.) But I absolutely loved my coding classes. I’ve always loved scripting, writing algorithms, and developing code. I remember building applications on my TI-85 graphing calculator to solve precalculus and physics equations. I remember writing add-ons for a text-based game I played in high school. I remember building databases to help my wife plan a class trip to Washington, DC and track professional development requirements for teachers. But at the time, I never saw myself ending up where I am today. It just felt like something I did because it was interesting, because I liked it.
After all, I was just a high school student, a language arts teacher, a coordinator.
But now I see that all these things were small steps toward where I am today, leading me to where I’m going. It’s not that my interests in data, coding, technology weren’t there — on the contrary, they kept nudging me, gently at first, becoming more persistent as the years went on. It’s as though something or someone wanted to tell me that there was more to learn, more to do.
I’m here to share that I made the difficult decision to change my career trajectory, and I couldn’t be happier.
No journey is ever truly finished, and mine is just getting started!
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