Five nights of insights: Career Week in the Arts + Entertainment
Uncovering pathways to careers in the arts
Careers in the Arts
Art is a broad field with a wide array of disciplines, ranging from painting to music, performing arts to industrial design. Through your time at Boston College the Arts Council along with partners across the university team up with art professionals to explore creativity and provide opportunities to learn how to succeed in any chosen artistic path.
Increase your knowledge about art, design, and visual culture through classroom discussion that inspires creative thinking, and expand your network with alumni artists, and creative professionals, through the pinnacle fall event Career Week in the Arts + Entertainment.
Handshake
Handshake is BC's official career platform where you will apply for jobs/internships, find events, and more. The key to success on Handshake is completing your profile—80% of students who complete their profile get messaged by an employer.
Activate Your AccountCareer Cluster
Careers in communication, arts, and media offer opportunities to use written and verbal communication, creative expression, and diverse mediums to convey meaning and information to audiences. We invite you to explore this cluster to determine if it is a good fit for you and leverage our resources to launch your job, internship, or graduate school search.
Join This ClusterEagle Exchange
Eagle Exchange is an interactive virtual platform that fosters connections between students and Boston College alumni. You can use Eagle Exchange to build your professional network, ask career-related questions, find alumni mentors, and more.
Explore Alumni“I'd absolutely recommend Career Night to other BC students. I received great advice, and the alumni were all easy to talk to. I've already made connections and secured interviews!”
Events
Career Week in the Arts + Entertainment
Every year, students from all majors gather to network with Boston College alumni who have forged artistic careers. Career Week in the Arts + Entertainament is a great opportunity for current students to discover what it is to work in a chosen field, and how pursuing a passion can lead to a fruitful career.
Since its inception in 1999, Career Night for the Arts provided an opportunity for students and alumni to develop dialogue and relationships. Each year, over 100 students join 10-25 BC alumni who have established successful careers as: musicians, composers, conductors, photographers, designers, painters, editors, producers, directors, journalists, administrators, writers, actors, instructors, consultants, and attorneys. Students can navigate the museum talking with alumni from various professions.
In 2019, Career Night for the Arts expanded to include the overlapping fields in entertainment and media.
Career Week 2023
In collaboration with the Boston College Career Center, the Boston College Arts Council will host Career Week in the Arts + Entertainment.
Starting Monday, January 23rd through Thursday, January 26th the week will focus on a variety of virtual conversations with career professionals. Join us in Gallery 203 (Carney Rm 203) where you will join fellow students in conversation with our alumni. You will hear stories behind chosen career paths and engage in conversations around meaningful work. Food will be provided.
Since its inception in 1999, Career Night for the Arts has provided an opportunity for students and alumni to develop dialogue and relationships. In this expanded format, attendees will have the opportunity to gain valuable insight and advice, but also discover new ways to apply their passion and their current studies.
Over the years, speakers and attendees have included photographers, entrepreneurs and designers; musicians, actors and producers; playwrights, journalists and authors; managing directors, development officers and academics; creative headhunters, human resources, and hiring managers in a variety of industries.
Career Week is open to all Boston College students, alumni, faculty and staff. Registration is encouraged for the events.
Career Week 2023 Participants
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Monday, January 23 at 4pm
Sarah Khan '03, Travel Journalist and Editor
Sarah Khan is an award-winning travel journalist who recently completed a tenure as Editor in Chief of Condé Nast Traveller Middle East. She’s currently a contributing editor at Condé Nast Traveler and Robb Report, and has reported from seven continents for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Afar, Travel + Leisure, Food & Wine, and numerous other publications. Her work appears in The Best American Travel Writing 2021 and New York Times 36 Hours: 150 Cities from Abu Dhabi to Zurich. She's lived in six countries on three continents and possesses 2.5 passports.
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Tuesday, January 24 at 4pm
Shannon Riley '08, CEO + Founder | Building 180
Executive Director + Co-Founder | Paint the VoidShannon Riley is an award-winning, creative leader and cultural entrepreneur, who's spent her career producing innovative experiences bringing artwork to life to push the boundaries of what is possible in the art world. She is the Founder and CEO of Building 180, a women-run art agency whose mission is to inspire change through art and to help artists maintain sustainable careers.
Most recently, Shannon co-founded and became Executive Director of a new Bay-Area non-profit arts initiative, Paint the Void, that has commissioned over 230 murals on boarded storefronts in the wake of COVID-19. Since starting Paint the Void in April of 2020, Paint the Void has provided economic opportunity for over 250 local artists whom they commissioned for the murals. Paint the Void has received over $500k in grants from the Office of Economic and Workforce Development in San Francisco to make these opportunities possible which include over 15 community and participatory murals and over 230 donated murals to Food Banks and Small Businesses in need. Since starting Paint the Void, Shannon has been awarded a SXSW Community Service Award, a "Live with Optimism" award by Veritas Investments, a Bloomberg Philanthropies Award and was named a top 25 Creative Revolutionary leading the way for positive change by Codaworx.
Shannon focuses on amplifying the voices of emerging artists and cultivating a community that fosters collaboration and trust. She previously worked in Business Development and Sales for Fortune 500 Companies and a handful of small tech start-ups. In 2012 Shannon embarked on a new adventure to start Building 180 and follow her passion as an entrepreneur, artist and designer. She is a new mother, a lover of nature and is forever curious.
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Wednesday, January 25 at 4pm
Jen Patten '09, Director of Administration and Special Projects
College of Performing ArtsJennifer Patten holds a B.A. in English and Music from Boston College, an M.M. in Musicology from Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music, and an M.A. in Arts Administration from Teachers College, Columbia University. Prior to moving to New York in 2014, she served in the pilot Rhode Island Teacher for America corps and was hired as the founding humanities teacher at the Trinity Academy for the Performing Arts in Providence. Ms. Patten led arts integration initiatives with fellow academic instructors and artists-in-residence, crafting the trajectory of the school’s curriculum. After several years in the classroom, she was promoted to Curriculum Director, formalizing the school’s approach to arts-integrated education. From 2015-2022, Ms. Patten served as Head of the historic Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance, Inc., spearheading strategic initiatives, elevating and expanding programming, maintaining the highest standards of artistic excellence, and providing visionary and innovative leadership. In March 2022, Ms. Patten joined The College of the Performing Arts at The New School in her current role as Director of Administration and Special Projects and as a member of leadership on the Deans Council.
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Thursday, January 26 at 4pm
Shelagh Abate '97, Musician + Educator
Shelagh Abate has long been one of New York’s most sought-after musicians. Known for her simultaneously warm and assertive sound, versatility and musical intuition, she has earned a place in the lexicon of NYC’s busiest performers.Shelagh has opened more than one dozen Broadway productions from Mary Poppins to Frozen, to Music Man. She has performed regularly with The MET Opera Orchestra, Mostly Mozart, American Ballet Theater, The American Symphony Orchestra, is third horn with the Greenwich Symphony Orchestra and has been principal horn of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra under the artistic direction of Jaime Laredo since 1999. Through the years she has worked with some of the great musicians of our time: Seiji Ozawa, Simon Rattle, Andre Previn, Gunther Schuller, Robert Spano, John Williams, Marin Alsop, and Jaime Laredo. Shelagh has established fluency in the commercial realm as well as the classical, having performed as part of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, the Tony Awards Studio Orchestra on live television, numerous commercials, film score soundtracks, video games and has recorded with renowned artists such as Hugh Jackman, Sting, The Who, Tony Bennett, Rufus Wainwright, Lady Gaga, Barry Manilow, Joni Mitchell, and Phish’s Trey Anastasio. Chamber music has been at the very core of Shelagh’s success as a musician. She is a winner of the Coleman Competition (2000), and a founding member of the award-winning Triton Brass. Shelagh is Associate Professor of Horn at The Berklee College of Music, and has been on faculty with the Boston University Tanglewood Institute since 2008. She is a Stephens Custom Horns artist, regularly performing on one of the very first horns handcrafted by Stephen Shires.
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Thursday, January 26 at 4pm
David Faleris '04, Composer + Audio Creative
An active and versatile musician, David Faleris wears many hats as a composer, trombonist, educator, and administrator. After completing his undergraduate work at Boston College (B.A. Music), David returned to his home state of Maryland to study with James Olin at The Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University (M.M. Trombone Performance). He returned to Boston and served as Program Administrator for the Boston University Tanglewood Institute while teaching at Boston College and freelancing as a composer and trombonist. After eight years, David set out to pursue his long-time passion of composing for visual media by way of Berklee College of Music (M.M. & Post-Graduate Fellowship, Scoring for Film, Television, and Video Games) in Valencia, Spain. After eight years abroad — two in Spain followed by six in Scotland — he returned to New England with his wife Lisa, now residing in Newburyport, Massachusetts.
Join alumni as they discuss their BC experience, the shape of their career path, and give advice to those wanting to further explore a career in the Arts + Entertainment industries.
Career Networking Night Highlights
Career Night for the Arts at the McMullen Museum.
Career Night for the Arts at the McMullen Museum. Assoc. Prof. Kenneth Craig (Art History) talking with Matthew DiBenedetto.
Career Night for the Arts at the McMullen Museum.
Career Night for the Arts at the McMullen Museum. Molly Phelps of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
Career Night for the Arts at the McMullen Museum. Nemo Xu, Margherita Bassi and Emma Campbell speaking with freelance photographer Christopher Huang and freelance writer and editor Kathy Behan.
Career Night for the Arts at the McMullen Museum. Arts Council student representatives Jaileen Rivera and Emma Hardy.
Career Night for the Arts at the McMullen Museum.
Career Night for the Arts at the McMullen Museum. Thali Boruchovitch and Alessandra Escalante.
Career Night for the Arts at the McMullen Museum. WCRB 99.5 FM Morning Program Host and Producer Laura Carlo talking with Kate Mahoney.
Career Night for the Arts at the McMullen Museum. Annabel Hodson-Walker and Sebastian Bonaiuto, Director of Bands, Boston College.
Career Night for the Arts at the McMullen Museum. Tim Lemire of Fidelity Investments talks with students.
Career Night for the Arts at the McMullen Museum. Louise Nessralla and Nicole Rodriguez-Rowe.
Career Night for the Arts at the McMullen Museum. Elliot Smith-Hastie listens to Christopher Huang, freelance photographer.
Career Night for the Arts at the McMullen Museum.
Career Night for the Arts at the McMullen Museum.
Career Night for the Arts at the McMullen Museum. Assoc. Prof. Kenneth Craig (Art History) talking with Matthew DiBenedetto.
Career Night for the Arts at the McMullen Museum.
Career Night for the Arts at the McMullen Museum. Molly Phelps of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
Career Night for the Arts at the McMullen Museum. Nemo Xu, Margherita Bassi and Emma Campbell speaking with freelance photographer Christopher Huang and freelance writer and editor Kathy Behan.
Career Night for the Arts at the McMullen Museum. Arts Council student representatives Jaileen Rivera and Emma Hardy.
Career Night for the Arts at the McMullen Museum.
Career Night for the Arts at the McMullen Museum. Thali Boruchovitch and Alessandra Escalante.
Career Night for the Arts at the McMullen Museum. WCRB 99.5 FM Morning Program Host and Producer Laura Carlo talking with Kate Mahoney.
Career Night for the Arts at the McMullen Museum. Annabel Hodson-Walker and Sebastian Bonaiuto, Director of Bands, Boston College.
Career Night for the Arts at the McMullen Museum. Tim Lemire of Fidelity Investments talks with students.
Career Night for the Arts at the McMullen Museum. Louise Nessralla and Nicole Rodriguez-Rowe.
Career Night for the Arts at the McMullen Museum. Elliot Smith-Hastie listens to Christopher Huang, freelance photographer.
Career Night for the Arts at the McMullen Museum.
Career Night for the Arts at the McMullen Museum.
Career Night for the Arts at the McMullen Museum. Assoc. Prof. Kenneth Craig (Art History) talking with Matthew DiBenedetto.
Career Night for the Arts at the McMullen Museum.
Career Night for the Arts at the McMullen Museum. Molly Phelps of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
Career Night for the Arts at the McMullen Museum. Nemo Xu, Margherita Bassi and Emma Campbell speaking with freelance photographer Christopher Huang and freelance writer and editor Kathy Behan.
Career Night for the Arts at the McMullen Museum. Arts Council student representatives Jaileen Rivera and Emma Hardy.
Career Night for the Arts at the McMullen Museum.
Career Night for the Arts at the McMullen Museum. Thali Boruchovitch and Alessandra Escalante.
Career Night for the Arts at the McMullen Museum. WCRB 99.5 FM Morning Program Host and Producer Laura Carlo talking with Kate Mahoney.
Career Night for the Arts at the McMullen Museum. Annabel Hodson-Walker and Sebastian Bonaiuto, Director of Bands, Boston College.
Career Night for the Arts at the McMullen Museum. Tim Lemire of Fidelity Investments talks with students.
Career Night for the Arts at the McMullen Museum. Louise Nessralla and Nicole Rodriguez-Rowe.
Career Night for the Arts at the McMullen Museum. Elliot Smith-Hastie listens to Christopher Huang, freelance photographer.
Career Night for the Arts at the McMullen Museum.