Meredith Levick (WCAS04)
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“I resigned from my job, broke the lease on my studio apartment, sold and donated my furniture, stored a bunch of boxes, and essentially cut all physical ties with the city I had called my home for more than three years,” recalls Meredith Levick (WCAS04) of her rather sudden move from New York City to Argentina.
She needed a change of pace, she explains. A major change of pace. Though she was well employed in financial marketing and living in the city she had always wanted to live in, Levick was aware that she was facing a critical chance to pursue her long-held goal — set during her study abroad experience in Salamanca, Spain — of living in a foreign culture.
This dream was too important to give it up by getting “caught in a cycle [of] working a job to pay rent to live in New York.” Threatened with the complacency of this “status quo existence,” Levick says, “I knew that I had to take a risky jump off the wheel in order to re-shift my priorities and my goals.”
The process, from packing up her New York life to landing multiple positions in editing and communications in Buenos Aires, certainly wasn’t easy, yet the task of “downsizing and living with less felt like a long-awaited relief” to the young alum who was seeking a major adjustment.
The move was a massive step away from everything she knew, and it allowed her the time and space to reflect on her notions of fulfillment and happiness. The unfamiliar challenges and lifestyle waiting for her in Argentina helped her find the momentum to actively develop and pursue her own definition of success, to align work and self in a satisfying way.
Levick, who has always been drawn to the unconventional, explains that Northwestern played an important role in cultivating her adventurous spirit. Though she felt tremendous pressure to stay on the East Coast for college, she “struck out on [her] own” and chose Northwestern. “[The decision] launched four years of meeting a diverse group of students and professors and developing a sense of self apart from family and friends who stayed east.” Nortwestern gave her the room and the resources to discover what was most important to her.
Now that she is back in New York, Levick has tackled a handful of freelance projects, including a stint at a travel marketing agency and a copywriting project for a global branding agency headquartered in Buenos Aires. Plus she has teamed up with a well-known motivational speaker and life coach to contribute to and help edit a book aimed at young women.
Levick is strongly considering a move to Chicago and wants to put her skills and experiences to use in a communications-oriented position. Despite the economic downturn, she is keeping up her momentum and viewing her life with a new perspective. “My experience does not have to be exotic in order to be fulfilling,” she says of her new outlook “I now know that I can find beauty anywhere, I just have to want to see it.”
Read more alumni and student spotlights.
Posted July 16, 2009.
