My Professor Said I’d Never Make It In The Corporate World- He Was Right

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I was 20 when my professor told me that if I didn’t change ‘the way I acted’, I was never going to make it in the corporate world. I was in the third year of my public relations degree. He then proceeded to tell me that my dreams of working in professional sports too would be affected if I didn’t tone myself down. He told me I was going to find it hard to progress in my career in a professional environment. From that second, my confidence was shaken.

What I heard was he thought I had to change some of my major personality traits such as being extremely outgoing and talkative in order to be successful. The things that made me, well me, were apparently going to affect the rest of my life in a negative way.

All I wanted in my life at that point was to work for a professional sports team. Out of all of my professors, I had respected his opinion more than the others because he had that experience in sports that I desperately wanted for my own career path. His opinion mattered to me and instead of encouraging and guiding, he squandered the hope that a career in sports was in my future.

Being a woman and wanting a career in sports comes with a whole lot of other complications but none of those were ever something I worried about. I knew that if I could prove I could do my job…