Reigniting Her Fire: Meet Tess Peterson
When Tess Peterson first heard about The Paradigm Switch, it felt like fate. She was browsing through social media a few days after having THAT conversation with her active-duty Army husband — the one about what life after retirement could or should look like. She’d been thinking a lot about that conversation and the questions it raised. She’d had jobs she’d loved as a military spouse, ones that filled her with pride and advanced her career, but she’d also made the hard choice to set her career aspirations aside to focus on her family for several years. She was just starting to learn about digital careers, and while she sensed they could open the door to new professional options she didn’t know where to begin. When she came across an interview with Justine Evirs, President and Founder of The Paradigm Switch, it felt like Justine was speaking directly to her.
“Hearing Justine talk so openly about her journey and the career struggles she’d faced as a military spouse was eye-opening to me,” Tess said. “It felt like I was finally being seen, heard, and understood, and like I wasn’t alone in what I was experiencing. I felt like I was part of a community in that moment.”
Tess became an active member of the TPS Network and soon learned about our scholarship opportunities, and with them our Digital Career Bootcamp. Applications for TPS scholarships are open on a rolling basis, and the prerequisite for applying is the successful completion of the Switch and Launch courses in our Bootcamp. Tess originally saw the Bootcamp as simply part of the application process — something she needed to do to get from point A to point B. As she dug in, however, she discovered so much more.
“It was immediately clear to me that TPS is doing something different in the military spouse space,” she said. “Plenty of organizations offer scholarships, but TPS is truly focused on the wellbeing of the military spouse. As I worked through Switch, the first course in the Bootcamp, I was forced to think differently about myself and my career, and my success and personal growth through Switch motivated me to tackle Launch, the Bootcamp’s second course, soon after.”
Tess walked away from the Bootcamp empowered to leverage technology to launch her digital career.
“Throughout the Bootcamp I was constantly reminded that I do have goals, I do have skills, and I do have opportunities,” she said. “I started to believe in myself again, and I started to see the value I bring to the workforce as a military spouse and a marketing professional.”
The moment that Tess really knew she had found her community came in an unlikely form. She had applied for a TPS scholarship to the GreenFig Digital Marketing Science program but found out that she was not selected. Instead of being crushed, she breathed a sigh of relief. Emboldened by her TPS experience, she had also recently applied and been accepted to the masters program at Gonzaga University’s School of Leadership Studies. She had been anxious about how she’d balance this demanding coursework with the GreenFig load, and she took the GreenFig redirection as a sign. She dashed off a quick email to Justine expressing her relief.
“Justine’s reply blew me away,” she said. “She was so, so happy for me and affirmed my decision in so many ways. She made sure I knew that the TPS community would be cheering me on and supporting me at every step. That meant more to me than any scholarship award ever could.”
As Tess begins to wrap up her masters coursework, she is once again thinking about what’s next. She’s considering applying for the GreenFig scholarship again, this time armed with newfound confidence from her experiences in the Digital Career Bootcamp. The difference is apparent in her mindset, in how she carries herself, and in how she talks about herself and her career goals. No longer selling herself short, she is ready to stop starting over and to find the career consistency she’s craved during the thirteen years she has been a military spouse. We couldn’t be more proud of the hard work she’s done to get to this point, and we can’t wait to cheer her on as she takes the next steps.
She IS The Paradigm Switch.
