How Caitlin Cowan Found a Sustainable Career in The GREEN Program

What do you do after you fall in love with studying abroad while traveling?

(For this gal, you have wanderlust for life and blog about your sustainable travels when you can.)

However, Caitlin Cowan found a career that would help satisfy her craving for travel and sustainability. While the GREEN Program founder Melissa Lee spoke at our Careers In Sustainability Panel on March 28th, we asked Global Communications Coordinator Caitlin Cowan about how she landed her gig.

Q&A with Caitlin Cowan, Communications Coordinator of The Green Program

Green Philly Blog: What was your major in college?

Caitlin Cowan: I attended Temple University and studied Journalism.

What do you do now?

Caitlin Cowan: I am the Global Communications Director of The GREEN Program. TGP create short-term, career-focused experiential education programs for our world’s most pressing issues in sustainable development.

My day-to-day includes a variety of responsibilities including directing our marketing/brand strategy & creation, overseeing our online presence and social media platforms, and working directly with our students throughout the application and enrollment process. No two days are the same here at GREEN, and I wouldn’t have it any other way!

How did you find your current job?

Caitlin Cowan: During my time at Temple, I studied abroad in the UK, which served as such a momentous experience for growth (personally, professionally, socially, culturally, etc.). Upon returning to the US, I knew that I wanted to become involved with international education and global opportunities to help future student seize opportunity to go abroad and have a similar sort of intra/interpersonal transformation for themselves.

Ultimately, I continued working for the SMC Study Away office as a peer advisor and began researching third-party organizations related to international education in Philadelphia. 15 pages deep into a Google search for “international education organizations” and “study abroad Philly,” I came across a 2013 article by philly.com about The GREEN Program. Instantaneously attracted to the millennial, student-founded organization dedicated to sustainable development and education abroad, I cold-called Brady Halligan, the Director of Strategy of Business Development, to inquire more about the organization.

To keep an expansive (professional) love-story short, I joined their team as their social media & communications intern my final fall semester of my time at Temple. During my internship, I created content and maintained (and grew) their social media presence across their social media channels. After working alongside the TGP team throughout my senior year, I was unbelievably fortunate to have received an opportunity to officially join their passionate, welcoming team full-time post-graduation.

Nearly 4 years later, I still wake up each morning with the same level of excitement, motivation, and inspiration as the first day I stepped into GREEN HQ in 2013.

What resources did you use to find a career in sustainability?

Caitlin Cowan: During my time at TU, I was involved with events and other Temple-related sustainability initiatives on campus, kept up with local, surrounded events and news, and enrolled in as many environmental sciences classes as I could with my major.

More specifically, I would say that the ‘resources’ I used to find my career in sustainability came from my opportunities at TU (working in my communications department), my general interest and passion for the industry, and networks & friendships I had on-campus (friends, peers, faculty). The combination of these 3 general resources really helped me solidify my interests and attitude to just go for it.

What would you recommend to others looking to work in sustainability?

Caitlin Cowan: My overarching piece of advice for anyone interested in working in sustainability is to find your niche. Sustainability is something that is intertwined into all aspects society; your career in sustainability is out there!

Whether you’re interested in education, travel, food & beverage, retail, technology, policy, arts & culture, media & communications, there is something out there for you – or create it for yourself! Find the avenue you’re most passionate about, and leave your impact (but not carbon footprint… *ba-dum-tsss*).

 

Thanks to Caitlin for chatting with us! Do you want to find a sustainable career? Search our job board.