Courtney Dercqu

What is the biggest challenge you had to overcome to get to where you are now professionally? How did you overcome it?

It sounds corny, but the biggest obstacle I faced was actually believing in myself enough to take on new opportunities. While I've always enjoyed writing as a hobby, it wasn't until I was about to register for my Bachelor's degree that I realized it was what I wanted to do for a career. Prior to my decision, I'd actually been interested in becoming a therapist. After I graduated with my Associate's degree, I wanted to obtain my B.A. in Psychology with a minor in Creative Writing. The school I was attending at the time didn't have that major, and my only option was to have my minor be in English. Truthfully, I didn't want that. It was at that point I realized I had a choice in how the rest of my life went. As difficult as it was to tell my family that I was going to switch schools and pursue a degree solely in the Creative Writing field, I was happy that I made that decision. I enrolled with Southern New Hampshire University, who has an excellent Creative Writing program and knowledgeable professors. About midway through my first year of classes, a media platform I had already been writing for posted an internship opportunity on their website. I contacted the Vice President and was called in for an interview at their main headquarters in New York. At the time, I was working full-time as a Recruiter with a mental health agency and couldn't really afford to lose my annual salary, but if this was my only opportunity to get where I wanted to be in life, then my then-fiance and I were just going to make it work. I had never been so intimidated by an interview before. I took an elevator up to the 40th floor of the Hearst building, drenched in sweat from literally running through the subway platform when I met with the VP who was as polished (and cool) as a cucumber. The office overlooked the NY skyline and midway through my slurred speech and nervous introductions, I had to remind myself that I was interviewing and talking about something I knew like the back of my hand. I met with the team one more time via web conference and was offered a remote internship that allowed me to keep my full-time job and gain invaluable experience of working on a media-based platform. My internship taught me the ins and outs of networking and audience engagement. Further, it gave me insight as to how content can be engaging. What stories do people want to hear? What kinds of experiences and tone of voice are most relatable? What can be marketable - and why? I was offered a contract position with the company as their Content and Community Lead after my internship ended. Several months into my contracted position, my mother passed away and threw my life a major curveball. My contract position ended, as did school and my writing career as a whole. I landed a job as a medical receptionist before working my way through the ranks. About a year into working in the medical field, things in my life began to turn back around. I continued with my education, maintaining a 4.0 in my studies and landed my first full-time opportunity working as a Content Marketing Strategist with a digital marketing agency that works exclusively for law firms. On my interview, I felt like I was a fish out of water, listening to my now-supervisor talk about SEO and spreadsheets. I was just here to write. Mid-way through my interview, I decided to speak candidly. "I'm not going to lie to you and say that I have all this experience," I said. "I don't. But, your start-up company has found success because of the people you hired. People can be taught how to do something. What you can't teach people is how to have passion and how to be driven to be successful. Thats what I have. This is the career that I want, and all the rest can be taught along the way." I was hired the following week and have worked there ever since. I put my best foot forward at work, even if there are tasks that intimidate me. I ask questions. I research how I can improve my articles and new places where I can submit them to. I'm continually evolving at work, and it's a testament to how much I've evolved over the past few years. When it comes to getting to where you want to be, it all starts with confidence. You need to have an honest conversation with yourself about your end goals. Where do you see yourself in 10, 20, 30 years? What values are important to you in a career? What will you regret? Having these honest, albeit difficult conversations with yourself is the first step in being able to find success - and happiness. It took being surrounded by supportive people in order for me to feel comfortable enough with who I was and my skill level to pursue something of interest. If I didn't have that, it may have just taken a little bit longer but it's not impossible. I credit my husband for a lot of my success because regardless of what I wanted to pursue, he stood behind me. A strong support system is vital to being able to overcome your personal obstacles.

Did anyone ever oppose your career plans when you were young or push you in a direction you did not want to go?

My mother was not a huge fan of me traveling alone to New York for work. Not that I could blame her. She was my mother and a worrier since way back when. The idea of her young, novice daughter taking the three-hour round trip to New York several times a week for her career was enough to keep her up at night. Even though at the time we argued about it, she later came around when I was honest with her about what kind of career I wanted. My family has always been incredibly supportive of my writing. In fact, I'm the one who always pushed them away when it came to reading my work. I was humiliated, telling everyone that my writing was just for me when truthfully, it was only because I lacked the confidence to believe in my work. Because of that, I ended up pushing myself into a career I thought would bring me equivalent happiness to writing full-time. When I first started out in the mental health industry, I began to have a natural curiosity of working with teenage girls who were living with severe mental illness. The idea of helping others in this big universe if what first caught my attention. I thought it could be something I was good at, and from there, I could always write on the side as I'd done my entire life. I pushed myself into that career for about three years, conducting psychoanalysis on each of my friends and subsequently writing 25-page term papers about my conclusions. I was successful, getting an A on every assignment which only convinced me further that this was a career I could be happy in. When I began to start the process of enrollment for my Bachelor's Degree, I noticed how important it was for me to minor in the writing field. When that option wasn't available to me, it's when I realized I had been pushing myself in the wrong direction. If being a psychology major was truly the right path for me, then I wouldn't have been so heartbroken that I couldn't major in something else. That's when I knew and made the changes that were necessary for my career and my happiness.

What is the most useful piece of career advice you got as a student, and who gave it to you?

It wasn't so much a piece of advice as it was a professor who challenged me while I was taking a Linguistics course in college. There is a stigma around attending an online school. A lot of people tend to believe that the teachers don't work as hard as teachers who work in a brick-and-mortar institution and when it comes to the students, somehow we lack in intellect and work ethic. I've had conversations with people who turn their noses up to my education and my 4.0 and say, "Well, online school is easy." Online school is actually much harder than attending regular college, in my opinion. If you have a question, you can't just raise your hand and get help. You have to wait for a response and even then, you still run the risk that you may not understand the answer. Likewise, you need to have complete self-control. There isn't an alarm clock or roommate to remind you about class. You need to set your own schedule and adhere to it diligently otherwise you'll be spending your entire day trying to play catch up. Here are my two cents: college is challenging, regardless of what you're studying and where you go. Don't ever let anyone convince you otherwise! With all that out of the way, I had this professor who had his doctorate in the study of linguistics. His class was the hardest, most challenging class I'd ever been in. He was a meticulous grader and if you made one typo, you had points off without a second thought. I couldn't wait for his class to be over. About mid-way through the semester, he critiqued one of my papers and, like always, tore it apart bit by bit. But, I still had an A. He wrote a message in there that said, "I want you to challenge yourself. I want you to challenge me. You have the ability to do this." After that, I began to feel a shift in how I tackled my education. I've had teachers throughout my life who have taken the easy way out and didn't really care about my success. But, having a professor who believed in me and gave me the tools to succeed was something that changed my entire outlook on my education and my self-worth when it came to recognizing what I was capable of.