Alumni Spotlight: Maggie Miller ’20

Meet Maggie Miller, a 2020 Political Science and Philosophy graduate. Maggie is currently a Digital Assistant at the Democratic Governors Association. Her main role as a Digital Assistant is fundraising email production built through a CRM Database. “I have a small coding background through my time at Denison writing for OneTwentySeven and combined with my time post-grad training with the National Democratic Training Committee, I was able to gain the analytical, research and writing skills required for my role. Additionally, I gained campaign exposure working on a small scale team running Digital communications for a City Council campaign in NYC. At Denison, I was involved in a diverse array of things, but the key roles that stuck out were my time as a student leader and co-coordinating June Orientation. It was an incredible leadership experience that allowed me to further foster relationships at Denison and experience unique traditions.”

Maggie shares that she “really didn’t have a job I thought I would be doing.” She says she had a lot of interests, which she thinks might be a universal Denison thing, where you have a lot of things that interest you, you think you could excel in but unsure what that title looks like or what that company is. “Throw in graduating in 2020, and I would say I was the definition of unsure where to go. I casted a wide net, like very wide. I applied to non-profits, corporate communication companies, personal assistant roles, I even worked as a temp at an insurance firm. All the while, I knew I wanted to get into “politics” but that is super broad. My thought was political writing – so I messaged everyone I knew, learning what positions were out there. In doing so, I stumbled upon the National Democratic Training Committee. From there, I learned about how much campaign work would match all the interests I have in one role. From there I made it to the DGA.”

Maggie was recently chatting with her friends from Denison and said that many of them were saying that their majors and minors, “although incredible and informative,” do not directly correlate to what they do now, “which is so okay!” She shares, “college is there to set you up for the future, absolutely, but your major is not your job. Especially when it comes to social sciences, majors are much more abstract, and so they might not always connect directly to what you end up doing. However, ALL of it is relevant. In my position, I do hiring for internships we hold, and I love hearing what people major in, their interesting classes and outside activities – it all adds to your abilities and forms who you are!”

Maggie’s advice to you- “Taking some time to find the job that fits you is OKAY – I really struggled with this, obviously the pandemic made it even THAT much harder to find a job but some of my friends snatched jobs up much earlier than I did and that really discouraged my application process, however some of them also took jobs they weren’t that sure about so although I was working as a nanny, waitress and temp gigs, I ended up getting the job of my dream where they weren’t in love with their jobs and some ended up changing after the first 6 months.”

Thank you, Maggie!

Connect with Maggie on Linkedin.

By Maya Coppola
Maya Coppola