From dancers and artists to those look­ing toward gov­ern­ment and non­profit, Prince­ton hosts a smor­gas­bord of inter­ests on cam­pus. How­ever, when it comes to search­ing for a job or intern­ship, some choose to leave those inter­ests behind in pur­suit of a more “tra­di­tional” job.

But we don’t have to.

Meet Abi­gail Racelis, Career Service’s new Assis­tant Direc­tor for the Arts, Non­profit, and the Pub­lic Sec­tor.  Since join­ing the team this July, Abbey has ded­i­cated her­self to bring­ing non-traditional job and intern­ship oppor­tu­ni­ties to cam­pus for stu­dents inter­ested in cre­ative writ­ing, dance, the­ater, visual arts, and the non­profit and pub­lic sectors.

“My main vision is to be an advo­cate for all stu­dents, but espe­cially those who are think­ing about pur­su­ing what some would call ‘non-traditional’ careers. My goal is to bring more expo­sure to (and add  to) all the great things Career Ser­vices offers for stu­dents inter­ested in the arts, non­profit, and pub­lic sec­tors. I hope to use my pre­vi­ous indus­try expe­ri­ence and inter­est in the arts, social jus­tice issues, and pol­icy mixed with my stu­dent a airs back­ground to help bring some­thing new to Career Ser­vices for Prince­ton stu­dents.”
 

If you were pleas­antly sur­prised to see more fly­ers in your inbox regard­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties in fields like non­profit, visual arts or fash­ion, thank Abbey. Since begin­ning her new role, she has worked tire­lessly to inform stu­dents about unique fields of employ­ment and build on-campus recruit­ing net­works with new com­pa­nies. In addi­tion to meet­ing with stu­dents indi­vid­u­ally in her role as a career coun­selor, she has already coor­di­nated sev­eral cam­pus events, includ­ing a panel on Careers in Visual Arts, the Christie’s Infor­ma­tion Ses­sion, pan­els on Non­profit and Gov­ern­ment Intern­ships, and she just facil­i­tated a panel on Careers in Fash­ion last week. All of these events were very pop­u­lar with students.

“We brought in the VP of Mar­ket­ing for Lacoste, the Mer­chan­dise Plan­ner from the Gilt Groupe, the Exec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent of Sales and Logis­tics from Rosie Pope Mater­nity, an Assis­tant Buyer from Michael Kors, and a Pro­duc­tion Man­ager at Ralph Lau­ren,” all of whom are recent Prince­ton alumni. Con­trary to pop­u­lar belief, it’s rather com­mon for Prince­ton stu­dents to pur­sue careers in cre­ative indus­tries, she explains, espe­cially on the busi­ness side.

“Stu­dents can use their ana­lyt­i­cal, crit­i­cal think­ing, and com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills, as well as expand and explore their cre­ativ­ity while gain­ing expo­sure to indus­tries that are fast-paced, high energy, and dynamic,” she said.

Abbey’s own career path pro­vides a wealth of ‘in-the-biz’ expe­ri­ence. After grad­u­at­ing from the Uni­ver­sity of Con­necti­cut, she moved to New York City and embarked on a career in fash­ion. She started out as an account exec­u­tive in sales for one of the top chil­drenswear man­u­fac­tur­ers, work­ing on small “mom-and-pop” accounts and grad­u­ally mov­ing up to the big depart­ment store accounts, like Dillard’s and Macy’s. Her posi­tion work­ing with char­ac­ter licens­ing and even­tu­ally as a mer­chan­diser gave her unique expo­sure to both the sales and design sides of fashion.

In addi­tion to her expe­ri­ence in fash­ion, Abbey has always nur­tured a life­long involve­ment in the arts, espe­cially dance. Grow­ing up as a dancer in the con­ser­va­tory world, part of her deci­sion to move to New York involved pur­su­ing a career in dance. While work­ing a full-time job she also per­formed in some off-Broadway pro­duc­tions as a back-up dancer, appeared on Good Morn­ing Amer­ica, took (and still con­tin­ues to take) count­less classes at Broad­way Dance Cen­ter and work­shops with var­i­ous  chore­o­g­ra­phers, and even spent a sum­mer work­ing at the School of Amer­i­can Bal­let “pur­su­ing a child­hood dream in a dif­fer­ent perspective.”

Abbey’s inter­est in career coun­sel­ing sparked while she was work­ing in fash­ion and was appointed Intern­ship Direc­tor for a chil­drenswear com­pany. “I needed interns and started recruit­ing at uni­ver­si­ties in the city. It was when I was going to the career fairs, recruit­ing, and work­ing with my interns that I real­ized I loved work­ing with stu­dents.” So, leav­ing the Big Apple behind, she headed for Bowl­ing Green, Ohio to get her mas­ters in Higher Edu­ca­tion and Stu­dent Affairs.

After work­ing for a few years at Bowl­ing Green State Uni­ver­sity and the Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan in aca­d­e­mic advis­ing, Career Ser­vices, and ath­let­ics, she found her­self at Prince­ton. “I love the stu­dents here and get­ting to know their sto­ries. I think they’re inspir­ing and they’re doing a lot of things here that I would have never thought to do as an under­grad. They’re very ambi­tious, intel­li­gent, and very moti­vated; I’m excited to see the stu­dents grow.”

This new, smil­ing, fash­ion­ably dressed mem­ber of Career Ser­vices has much to offer stu­dents in fields as diverse as they are. “I’m really excited about this role. Everyone’s career path, just like mine, is not per­fectly lin­ear– there will be unex­pected twists and turns. My main goal is to be some­one that stu­dents can feel com­fort­able com­ing to and talk­ing about their future with.”

Stu­dents can sched­ule an appoint­ment to meet with Abbey by using the online sched­ul­ing sys­tem on the Career Ser­vices website.