During her time at Northwestern, Caroline Caffrey was involved in student led theater. Now she’s expanding on her love for communication in the commercial sector.

Caffrey, a School of Communication alumna (’18), majored in theater and sociology.

“Right from freshman year, the ‘theater is in our DNA’ idea really kicked in me” she told The Daily. “I quickly got involved in several theater productions including the Dolphin Show and Waa-Mu.”

The community at Northwestern and her involvement in student productions and Northwestern A Cappella Community Alliance allowed her to make a subsequent transition into a double major with sociology.

“It helped me understand human behavior and communication in an entirely different way, which made me a well-rounded academic and allowed me to do several different types of studies,” Caffrey said. “I love anything that involved communication.”

During the course of her time at NU, she also wrote and archived for the 86th Annual Waa-Mu Show and at one point she was planning for and leading all 14 a cappella groups.

“The skills I learned from theater are applicable to a lot of things that aren’t theater and as a part of Waa-Mu, I learned several different leadership styles,” she said.

This past summer, Caffrey accepted a history storytelling and archive fellowship with the Times Square Alliance in New York City, a not-for-profit that promotes Times Square.

“When I saw the job online, it seemed interesting because the job had a little bit to do with theater with the history of Broadway and the history of New York in general,” she said.

In a few weeks she will be moving into a customer solutions job in the Chicago area with McMaster Carr.

“It’s not customer service, it’s about dealing with specific problems for customers.” she described it.

Caffrey was also recently accepted into New York University’s Tisch School of Arts graduate program for musical theater writing, where she will begin studying in the 2019 academic year.

She plans on pursuing musical theater writing with a day job in communication after graduate school.

Her advice to current undergraduate students? Follow your passions.

“Don’t just do something because you feel like it will round out your resume because if you pursue the things you love,” she said. “You will learn the skills you need … also don’t undervalue your on-campus experience.”

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