ENGLISH ALUMNA TAKES HER SKILLS TO SILICON VALLEY
When I ask Brea Davenport (English ‘12) her take on English majors, she describes her sophomore year experience of strolling into the Academic Advising Center to declare her major just as the deadline was passing. “We’re late,” she says of her English cohort. “But we’re eloquent.”
Davenport, now an SMB Account Manager at Twitter, had not planned on being an English major. She was raised in Statham, Georgia, by a family of English majors and had no intention of following suit. “I thought to myself, ‘I’m going to go off the beaten path. I’m going to do something different.’ And then when I got to Duke and took one of Professor Ferraro’s courses, I thought, ‘Yeah, I’m gonna be an English major.’”
At Duke, Davenport enhanced her English major with external interests. For one, she was heavily involved with Hoof n’ Horn, the student musical theater group, which she credits with some of her “life highlights.” She was also a member of Business Oriented Women and the Black Student Alliance. And her student career at Duke was not limited to the undergraduate level: she later returned for a Master’s Degree in Management Studies from the Fuqua School of Business.
Upon graduating from Fuqua, Davenport was hired as a marketing strategist at Disney, where she had previously interned. In her new marketing position, Davenport made use of her English major on a daily basis as she worked on the language and overarching message of different campaigns. “I edited. A lot. They’d say, ‘Brea’s an English major, she can just do it.’” She also found it vital to maintain a similar consistency of writing papers and upholding their arguments as she did throughout her undergraduate career. “In marketing,” she says, “I kept the ability to form cohesive thoughts and condense a lot of information, because as an English major you have to do things like write a five-page paper on Moby Dick.”
After Disney, Davenport took a position as an Associate Account Strategist at Google. Cheerful, quick-witted, and funny, she began to pair her marketing skills with client service. From there, she made the transition to Twitter, where she continues to work with advertisers, though now in an account management setting. And although she enjoys her job, Davenport says that she misses the readings that she was assigned as an English major. “It's a privilege to have the experience of being forced to read a lot, because you don't have to opportunity to do that when you leave."
Davenport characterizes the study of literature as one that generates skills of communication and compassion. “You’re able to go into so many worlds and see so many kinds of thought, and that translates into real world empathy." In her view, that empathy translates into being a thoughtful person on the job. “Yes, you're trying to do a job,” she says, “but people have to like working with you." She alludes to encountering less understanding employees during her experiences at Twitter and Google. “I mean, you can spot the people who don’t actually work with other people from a mile away."
After Twitter, Davenport plans to move closer to her family and continue her career in marketing. Wherever she goes, she wants to “guide the tone of the campaign and the consistency of the brand,” and use what she’s learned about literature and communication to foster thoughtful interactions. Her advice to undergraduates? Be confident in one’s education, be fully aware of one’s skill sets, and reach out to people, especially alumni. “People from Duke,” she says, “are everywhere.”
Sofia Manfredi
Digital Media Intern
Duke University English Department
English Department
