The Game of Life. You’ve got to spin the wheel and move across the board, accruing money, choosing a partner, building a family and eventually deciding on your dream retirement all while bragging to your sibling you got the red car because you called dibs first. When I would play with my older sister, the academic of the family, I would almost always lose, because when it came to the very first question, college or career, I would always choose a career and she would always choose college. She was either a neuroscientist or a lawyer, and I was a pilot or fashion designer.
Leah O’Rourke, a makeup artist based out of New York, New York, chose both. She began by taking the vocational path, earning her esthetician licences her junior year of high school. She then continued to college to earn her degree in business and entrepreneurship from Fordham University.
Senior year is full of stress, particularly surrounding post-high school plans. Some people, like my older sister, are made to be in the classroom. They love to take notes, read studies, engage in debates and listen to lectures. Others, like me, would rather spend an entire day learning how to cut the perfect 90 degree layered haircut. How do you know if you’re wasting your time on something that may just be a hobby? How do you know if you’re missing out on your calling because you’re stuck to the traditional academic path? O’Rourke had the same question, and this was her approach. Estheticians are licensed to practice makeup, provide skin care such as facials and with specialty training can perform laser hair removal or tattooed makeup.
“I knew that I wanted to be a makeup artist, but I wasn’t sure if it was going to be a hobby or a side job. . . . I definitely felt pressure from my parents or peers to get a 9-to-5 job. I just said to my parents, ‘You have to let me do this, just give me three years to see if I can make it work, and I’ll get a service industry job, and I’ll pay my rent.’ . . . There was definitely the pressure of getting that 9-to-5 [job] and worried about how expensive New York City is but . . . at the end of the day, I needed to work. I am happy I didn’t go down that corporate path,” she said.
Pressure from parents, societal norms or uncertainty of the future are all factors that can force a path adverse to a student’s actual aspirations. Moving to New York to pursue her dream, O’Rourke was working five days a week at a high-end restaurant while trying to build her brand at the same time. As it turned out, her coworkers were the best support system she could have found.
“One thing that I was so appreciative and grateful for was working in the service industry in NYC [because] almost 90% of your peers who are there are also in some sort of creative industry. So, if I got a photo shoot one day I would be messaging [asking if] someone could please cover my shift tomorrow [because] I just got this really big photoshoot opportunity and would love to take it. I knock on wood because I have never had to turn down a job because of that,” O’Rourke said.
That really stood out to me because it tells the story of so many people, like O’Rourke, who did not take a traditional route and are pursuing their dream despite the uncertainty and extra workload it requires. O’Rourke discussed how during her senior year of college, the bulk of her workload was networking, reaching out to companies and make-up artists to create connections within the cosmetics industry.
“I think that your work kind of can show for itself. . . . Harboring these relationships with these celebrity makeup artists and building that relationship [shows that] they want to help you. Ten years ago, they were in my shoes. . . . So I think that relationship building and word of mouth is probably the biggest thing,” O’Rourke said.
Whether you take the college route or the career, you have to be your biggest advocate and advertise yourself. That means you have to know yourself, your skill set and where you want to be; then seek out the people or jobs that you will thrive in. There are many tools available, such as LinkedIn or Indeed, that only require a profile to connect you to many different people or jobs. It is important to keep in mind that you can utilize those tools in addition to conducting outside research and individual connections. O’Rourke is an established artist in the community, yet she continues to market herself and add to her already busy schedule, not allowing herself to get comfortable in the success she has found.
“I definitely felt burnout. I still feel burnout, but I think that I thrive on that in a way. When I am at a stand still, I almost feel like I am not doing enough, and I am not at a position yet where I can take this time off,” O’Rourke said.
If you are the type of person who loves being on the go all the time, likes to have your hands in every part of what you are doing and has a passion that may not be in line with a traditional college route, consider this: O’Roukre could have chosen to take her degree to a successful company working for people not with people. Instead, she took the jump, gave herself a timeline, surrounded herself with the tools she needed to succeed and then put in the work. As a result, she has been able to assist multiple celebrity makeup artists such as Tim Mackay and Taylor Fitzgerald, runs her own business which is consistently booked and will be very busy for the upcoming New York fashion week.
