If you’re thinking of changing careers, here’s a case to boost your will.
Remember “Lemonade Mouth,” the Disney flick from 2011 that resonated with teenagers who’d felt unheard in their community? In a little over a decade, the film’s star, Bridgit Mendler, has reached heights outside the film industry that no other Disney star has come close to.
Mendler, who has starred as the lead on “Good Luck Charlie” for four seasons and delivered hits like “Ready or Not” and “Hurricane”, has put her post-Disney acting career to rest since 2019.
Why?
Because it takes a lot of time and effort to build a data highway between Earth and space.
In 2024, Mendler launched a million-dollar start-up called Northwood Space in California, with her as the CEO and her husband as the chief technology officer.
Not only that, but she’s also doing it with a Juris Doctor at Harvard Law School and a PhD at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under her belt.
So yeah – if you’re wondering where she went, Mendler is doing more than fine for someone who decided to change careers.
Follow your heart wherever it takes you
Many artists change careers because they have to. The entertainment industry is as unstable as ever, and household bills wait for no one.
Yet, Mendler’s career was far from dwindling. She’d been booking consistent roles on TV, and even went on tour for her EP, “Nemesis,” in 2017.
Here’s the distinction: Mendler went into space law simply because she loved it.
She fell in love with the field after working at the Federal Communications Commission’s Space Bureau in 2022, and she’s never looked back.
TLDR; your true calling sometimes comes later in your journey. University and degrees aren’t the be-all and end-all to the career you’d end up pursuing, some 50 years later.
Think about it: you probably chose a degree when you were 17.
Mendler’s case looks slightly different from everyday, but it still counts.
She spent her younger years in Hollywood, and could’ve danced towards the same fame as Ariana Grande today. Instead, she chose to go back to school, work, and in the process, found a new passion.
That feeling of fulfilment in pursuing something you love, and not something that’s expected of you – that’s irreplaceable.
So if you’re thinking of changing careers, do it.
5 international graduates who changed careers and succeeded
A random video on Facebook about zero waste management made Hanna Purdelo alter her career entirely. Source: AFP
From arts to waste reduction
Hanna Purdelo hails from Tallinn, Estonia, and she’s always marched to the beat of her own drum. She quit law after six months, moved to France to study art history, and then later went to the UK to work at the Saatchi Gallery and pursue a master’s in arts policy and management.
It all blew into uncertainty when the pandemic came knocking in 2020, putting a pause to Purdelo’s career in cultural events management, since all event venues were closed.
But amidst the dark, inspiration would hit Purdelo in ways she never imagined.
She stumbled upon a random video on Facebook about zero waste management, and it altered the trajectory of her career entirely.
Soon, Purdelo would start collecting materials to educate herself on waste reduction, and she found a new burning passion to teach others how simply they can impact the environment. Today, she works as a waste projects assistant, and she has no regrets about changing careers.
“There’s no clear structure in my path, which is usually expected in our current society,” says Purdelo. “The only constant path that I’ve taken is that I’ve always followed my heart.”
Today, Eveline Sulistio is a development director at Maxis Studios – Electronic Arts, the creators of the infamous Sims world. Source: Eveline Sulistio
From civil engineering to producing games
In many cases, the decisions you’re forced to make as a teenager don’t hold up to who you want to be and what you want to do as an adult.
That was the case for Eveline Sulistio. She was 15 years old when her teachers asked students to choose their Year 11 subjects according to their intended major at university.
With an interest in maths, science, and particularly physics, the Indonesian found herself pursuing civil engineering at Monash University in Melbourne.
While she enjoyed the challenge of her degree, the real setbacks would present themselves after graduation. Sulistio returned home to Indonesia and struggled to find a job in Australia.
Amidst that challenge, however, a silver lining would appear.
A self-taught Japanese speaker, Sulistio decided to hunt for jobs in the Land of the Rising Sun. It was a gruelling journey that would meet its payoff when she stumbled upon a website with job openings in Japan for foreigners. One of them was at a gaming company.
Instead of becoming a civil engineer in Australia, Sulistio kickstarted her work as an associate game producer in Tokyo before making the return back to the Land Down Under to make moves in the game development industry there instead.
Even as a dentist, Kanika Mathur felt her interest in computers and technology growing. Source: Kanika Mathur
From dentistry to software development
Sometimes, the catalyst to changing careers isn’t some spark of a lightbulb moment. For Kanika Mathur, her decision to switch from dentistry to computer science resulted from a long-brewing interest in computers and technology.
Mathur first decided to pursue dentistry in her home country, India, through a genuine interest in the healthcare industry and how it could make a difference in people’s lives.
Her career wasn’t fulfilling, but Mathur just found herself wanting more.
In 2020, she packed her bags and moved to Canada to pursue a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science at Memorial University of Newfoundland.
Despite the fact that changing careers often requires you to start from the ground up, she says, “It was exciting to take on the adventure and challenge of the transformation, and learn to bridge the knowledge gap between two vastly different disciplines.”
She struggled through the transition of changing careers, feeling far behind her peers, but now, she’s on the other side.
“I countered those feelings with realistic goals, gave myself treats for small wins,” Mathur says. “Most of all, I reminded myself that expertise comes with time and experience.”
From finance to technology
Deric Yee’s career switch was only bound to happen.
Hailing from Malaysia, Yee was attending Lancaster University in the UK to study finance and venture capital when he caught what’s known as the “start-up founder” bug. He felt inspired by his peers, watching them build their companies from scratch into something special.
A desire to build his own start-up began to bubble beneath his skin. So when he returned home to work in venture capital in 2019, it only made sense that he wasn’t fulfilled.
Through a gruelling process of learning to code, spending 12 hours locked in his bedroom on online tutorials and building full-stack web applications, opportunity would finally break through for Yee in 2022.
He began consistently freelancing in the tech industry and thought of building a tech startup once again.
But Yee realised, when trying to hire skilled developers for projects, that there was a gap between what students learnt at university and what the industry actually needed.
That’s when he decided to start up Sigma School – a three-month, affordable coding boot camp that guarantees you’ll earn your money back.
“You don’t need a degree to succeed in tech – you need skills, proof of work, and the right network,” Yee says.
A longtime lover of animals, pet-sitting is a career that uplifts Erisha Menon’s soul. Source: Erisha Menon
From content creation to being a pet nanny
When Erisha Menon decided to leave her post as the head of social media and content producer of a sportswear brand based in Malaysia, it wasn’t because she’d fallen out of love with the job.
Graduating with a BA in Communication and Media Studies from Waldorf University in the US, Menon has built her name across roles in content creation and social media. She returned home to Malaysia in 2021 after the pandemic hit, when her visa application was rejected.
And while she was passionate about her work, it still took a toll on her mental health.
“I feel so much lighter after my career change. I felt like a puppet before and just following a stream. Now, I feel free because I have that power back again,” she says.
In search of a career change that would fulfil her soul, Menon found the courage to build a new business surrounding one of her lifelong passions: animals.
She founded a pet-sitting business in Kuala Lumpur called The Pet Nanny. As someone who’s rescued between 50 and 80 cats in the past three years, Menon knew this was the right career move for her.
