“Reaching Your Dreams” series tells stories of Northwestern alums of Chicago Field Studies, an academic internship program that matches over 500 students every year with over 250 employer partners. CFS participants receive guidance on choosing internships based on their passions and values. Students navigate applying and interviewing and develop skills to succeed in the professional world. While interning, students process their experiences in weekly CFS seminars, where they reflect on the place of work in their lives and the role of their industry in society.
By Nina Wieda
Vivien Hough ’21 is an Associate Marketing Manager at AbbVie. She helps patients suffering from chronic autoimmune issues, with which she is familiar from her personal experience. She graduated from Northwestern with a BA in American Studies and a minor in Business Institutions. Her two rounds in Chicago Field Studies helped Vivien test her compatibility with two different careers, and eventually, to chart her professional future.
Despite growing up in the family of two Kellogg alums, Vivien did not imagine herself heading into a business career. She loved ballet and dreamed of becoming a professional dancer, but a chronic autoimmune disease kept her in bed for weeks at a time through most of her childhood. Some years, she had to miss nearly three months of classes out of a school year. It was a lonely experience that was difficult to explain to other children and it made a career in ballet impossible.
A high school teacher inspired Vivien’s interest in American Studies, and she came to Northwestern excited to join its celebrated American Studies program. She deeply enjoyed her classes on history, English, and political science. A friend told Vivien about his CFS internship working on a political campaign. “That sounded like a really interesting experience to me. I didn’t even know you could have an internship as a sophomore – how does it work?” Vivien followed her friend’s example and applied for Chicago Field Studies.
Law school was a common career path among American Studies majors, and Vivien considered it as well. She secured a CFS internship with the American Bar Association and took a CFS class on social justice. “Our instructor was deeply entrenched in Chicago’s social justice community. We did a lot of really interesting field trips. We had a lot of fascinating guest speakers that really complemented my internship experience. They were all activities that I wouldn’t have the opportunity to do in a typical class setting.” Interning at the American Bar Association provided Vivien an opportunity to meet many former and current lawyers, and hearing their perspectives on the profession helped her realize that law wasn’t the right path for her. “I did a lot of introspection. I think that CFS helped me realize that it’s okay to try something and realize you don’t like it and move on from it and be grateful for the skills you learned.”
Equipped with new self-knowledge, Viven added a minor in Business Institutions and signed up for another round of CFS two years later. This time, she tried a completely different career – private banking investment with Merrill Lynch. She enjoyed the position and loved working with her team: a group of ten people united by the same goal and supporting each other along the way. It was an interesting time to intern – the anxiety about the advancing pandemic was growing, and the last day of the internship was the day before Illinois shut down for the quarantine. When Vivien graduated a year later, many jobs were fully remote and did not appeal to her, but a Merrill Lynch recruiter reached out and invited her to interview. “It just shows the significance and the power of the connections that I made during CFS.” Vivien joined Merrill Lynch and learned a lot during her tenure with the company.
Vivien has reflected deeply on the role of work in her life. “Every single job has tasks that are not exciting. What makes a difference is waking up and feeling like you have a purpose, like you’re working towards something bigger. There is something that I feel strongly about and that is the goal of all of this.”
Now, Vivien works with patients suffering from chronic autoimmune diseases in the division of gastroenterology at AbbVie – a position that resonates with her personal experience growing up with an autoimmune disease. “The experience of being so sick as a child really informed my personal connection to health care and wanting to work in that field. My childhood experience was very isolating, so now, the fact that I get to work on patient advocacy programs with the goal of helping people not feel isolated is really impactful. It’s a full circle moment for me.”