After graduating from Boston University a couple years ago, Marketing Coordinator Madison Mercado found her first full-time job at Finegold Alexander, and it exposed her to a new industry she didn't know much about before.

For our April Staff Spotlight, we sat down with Madison to hear about what she's learned in this job, her career accomplishments, and more. Read the Q&A below!

Q: What did you want to be when you were younger?

A lot of random things like a scientist, then a filmmaker, then a graphic designer, and I landed on journalist going into college.

Q: If you could give advice to a young professional beginning their career, what would you say?

It’s important to be open to learning and trying new things. Even if you have a set career in mind, having the flexibility to pivot and or explore another industry exposes you to different parts of the world.

Q: What inspired you to be involved in the AEC industry?

I took the advice of being open to new things to heart starting my career. I didn’t know anything about the AEC industry before taking this job other than my sister being in architecture school; I was in the journalism industry throughout college. But that I am here, I greatly value the knowledge I’ve gained about this industry no matter what happens next in my career.

Q: What are some of your career highlights so far?

Building the firm podcast What’s the Scope? with Finegold Alexander Architects has been a joy for me at work. It combines a lot of my favorite things, podcasts, audio production/editing, my past life of interviewing, and some graphic design. And in the process, I get to continuously learn about the sectors at the firm and how projects are established from start to finish. Here’s a shameless plug to take a listen! I bet you’ll enjoy it!

Preservation Series

School Series

Library Series

Q: What have been some of your proudest achievements so far outside of work?

Even though it happened at the beginning of my career, I am proud to have graduated from Boston University a couple years ago. Graduating college kickstarted my adult life and I’m glad to have gone to a great school and live in a city independently.

Q: Do you have a favorite city to visit for architecture?

I haven’t traveled much in my life, and as obvious as it may sound, I love the city of Boston. When I first moved here from being on the West coast my entire life, the way the buildings look are completely different. There is so much brick and a different style of buildings I had never seen before. It’s also interesting to have so many older buildings and iconic places in the nation’s history constantly on display in my everyday life.