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从骑自行车到自由职业：Megan (Heath) Zietlow ' 21
Alumna Megan Zietlow ’21 found an unexpected career path while stuck at home during the COVID shutdown throughout her junior year at 威尼斯人平台. Now a freelance graphic designer and the founder of Zeta Creative, Megan took her experience in isolation and transformed it into a vibrant outpouring of the body of Christ.
社区建设
Megan did not start her college journey at Covenant but transferred in her freshman year from Piedmont College. At Piedmont, she cycled professionally for the USA National Team and at the collegiate level, racing around the world. However, after her first year at Piedmont, she found herself longing for something different. “I had spent all four years of high school competing at the cost of Christian community,” she says. While she was so thankful for her incredible experiences as a professional cyclist, she felt it was time for a change: “After my freshman year, I realized that I was ready to prioritize my faith.”
After a tour of Covenant, she felt very at home on campus and knew she had found the right place. She loved hanging out in the Blink with her friends late into the night, studying, talking, and playing games. Academically, she benefited from the close relationships fostered by her professors. Dr. Arwen Matos-Wood supervised her capstone project, and the two keep up their relationship even now. Megan majored in interdisciplinary studies, focusing on marketing alongside art and psychology. 的 creative/visual side of marketing was where she flourished, and when COVID struck, she had a lot more time to explore this path. “I began to play around in design softwares and watch YouTube tutorials,” she remembers. “This is when my realization that I wanted to be a graphic designer hit.” 的 next year, she took classes in brand design and motion design and participated in part-time internships with Lula Lake Land Trust and Empire Mock Trial, creating a coffee table book and other designs. She also did unpaid freelance design jobs for friends and family, slowly growing her clientele.
通过实习成长
实习在梅根成长为设计师的过程中发挥了重要作用。 After graduation, she worked two internships that summer in marketing and design with 的 Enterprise Center and Material Handling Inc., taking a full-time position as a marketing associate with Material Handling Inc. after her internships ended. 的 creative design aspects were still her favorite, so she took a new job with Zoe Angling Group a year later as a graphic designer. 然而，在2022年底，佐伊·安玲突然倒闭了。 Megan found herself at a crossroads: would she try to find another full-time job or start her own business? She trusted the Lord would use the experience of freelancing for good, whether or not she succeeded.
跳向自由职业
Since she began graphic design late in her college career, she had to teach herself a lot of the software and lingo when she began freelancing. “Covenant taught me how to learn for myself and how to think critically. Both of these are essential in the world of freelance,” she says. As she built her business, Megan surrounded herself with people from Covenant and her local church. Many of her closest friends came from the network of Covenant alumni in the Chattanooga area. “Dr. Matos-Wood and Leda Goodman were both so helpful in navigating post-grad career changes and challenges,” she recalls. “的y helped me create a professional resume, connected me with other professional connections, and have been the initial reason I have several of the clients that I do today.”
Founding Zeta Creative in 2023, Megan grew her business through word-of-mouth, email outreach, and LinkedIn. She loves meeting with friends and local business owners to chat and get to know one another in a no-pressure environment, saying “One of the things I’ve loved doing is just getting coffee with people without an agenda.” 的se open-minded meetings not only foster genuine community, but allow her to reconnect with people who may have a need down the road. Her clients range across multiple industries so her work varies greatly. She has worked on brand identities, website designs, and print advertisements all in a single day. She works with a range of industries from local restaurants, to forklift distributors, to local nonprofits, including the Chalmers Center. However, when interacting with people from different backgrounds, she keeps her feet grounded in Christ. “My faith informs which clients I work with and how I engage with them,” she says. “I take on clients whose companies’ vision and mission align with my personal values. My faith holds me to a high integrity and standard of excellence as a business owner.”
Megan has found her flexible schedule not only helpful in cultivating community relationships, but at home. As a new mom, her ability to work during nap times or at night is a massive blessing as she balances work and being present with her baby: “It is such a blessing to not have to sacrifice one for the other or feel that I am juggling more than I can handle.” From her time at Covenant throughout her many experiences and now to her current job, she has seen the Lord’s faithfulness leading her through. “I think it can be really scary to do something entrepreneurial… Looking back, I would tell myself that it has ended up not being nearly as scary as I thought it would be… I’ve had a lot of help,” Megan reminisces. “不要害怕尝试新事物。”
To learn more about studying marketing or art, visit 威尼斯人平台学术网页. To see Megan’s work, visit 她的网站.