Tallahassee native Tatyana Smith (’17 B.S. Information, Communication, and Technology) is no stranger to adventure and hard work. “I never knew what I wanted to do growing up–I just knew I didn’t want to be sitting beside a desk staring at a computer screen,” she says. After graduation, Smith moved to Reno, Nevada where she was promoted with the Nevada National Guard as a Staff Sergeant E6. She recently completed the Advanced Leadership Course in Tobyhanna, Pennsylvania where she finished top of her class and received the Distinguished Honor Grad and the Leadership Award.
On top of her already impressive accomplishments, Smith was also promoted to a Level 5 Area Manager II at her day job with Amazon. Her 11-hour days are spent planning and ensuring that there is enough personnel to handle the volume of work for them that day, analyzing data to find quicker work methods, and interacting with her team to eliminate any barriers keeping them from performing their best. Smith loves the exciting environment saying, “No two days are the same; it’s fast-paced and always a lot going on. If multitasking is something you’re looking to do in your career path, this is the job for you.”
At FSU, Smith was inspired by her professors, as well as her fellow students. “I’m inspired by the people in my life and in the world that are doing everything in their power to become the best version of themselves and never settling in life,” she says. She recalls her time in the IT Leadership class. “The ICT courses, in general, helped mold and mentor my mind to be able to balance and time manage with my current job.”
This instilled a passion in Smith that she was ready to bring to her career. When entering the workforce, she didn’t want to settle for second-best. “Amazon is one of the fastest-growing companies in the world right now. When striving for greatness, why not run with the best?” she says. Her advice to current students trying to do the same thing is inspiring. “Explore more possibilities of what’s going on in the world and study-wise. Don’t focus just on one patch, dabble in all the other opportunities to study abroad or learn multiple codes,” she says. And like a true ICT alum, Smith reminds students to “save all files and links to a hard drive for safekeeping.”