In this week's installment, Sales and Marketing Intern Nashé Wainright discusses the importance of expanding your horizons in the working world. I’m an English major at George Mason University with a concentration in Creative Writing. Who would have thought I would be the Sales and Marketing intern here at Island Press? Surely, not the folks who assume every English major wants to be a teacher.  Admittedly, my career plans did go astray after I had transferred and considered teaching abroad. When I moved to Fairfax and started at GMU, I immediately met with the education advisor, who informed me of the process of becoming a teacher. Apparently, there was a teaching program I had to apply to, but had already missed all the deadlines for. My only other option was to get my Masters in Secondary Education, my desired level of teaching, and that’s when I began exploring other opportunities. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to teach for the right reasons. Sure, I liked kids and the English language, and wanted my passion to burst around my future students from which they would all develop some sort of respect for English. But what I wanted even more was to be able to travel.  I still juggle with the idea of whether I would like being a teacher, or if I just desire to live abroad. For the past two years, I’ve been exploring different career fields, and it has definitely been a growth period in my life. I applied for this internship with the fixed curiosity of marketing and the aspiration to be a successful graduate, and this opportunity has helped me realize more than ever that I can expand my horizons. While my job here at Island Press mainly consists of researching potential buyers, I also dabble in other tasks pertaining to sales and marketing. One aspect that I find most intriguing is roundtable, which is when different departments— marketing, editorial, production, and development— get together to discuss a book proposal. As a writer, I try to channel both the sales perspective and the innate desire of getting published one day, and these sessions intertwine these interests. The questions they ask each other all relate to the idea of whether the book has potential, how it can stand out in the market, and whether or not it can sell. They may sound like basic concepts, but they are definitely good ideas to keep in mind as one is writing. Any who, for all the environmental lovers that may be reading these blogs, don’t limit yourself to the common idea that you have to mold yourself for the most common career in your major. One’s major is decided based off of interest, passion, or future finances. It doesn’t limit the different paths you can take in life, unless you let it. Cheers!