If I Wasn’t a Program Evaluator, I would Be A _____.

Updated on: Apr 19th, 2012

Collage of a bar chart, people, arrow, computer and calendar.

I love talking with other evaluators about their career paths – why they first entered the program evaluation field, their most rewarding projects, their most challenging projects, and what keeps them here. Sometimes we play the “If I wasn’t an evaluator, I’d be a ________” game.

If I personally wasn’t an evaluator, I’d probably be:

A data analyst. I’d play on Excel and SPSS and SAS all day long.
A strategic planner.
A grantwriter.
An author, probably of non-fiction books.
A teacher.
A conference planner. I do this part-time for the Eastern Evaluation Research Society right now and it’s wonderful.

Evaluation is a great field because I already get to use skills from all these professions in my everyday work.

If you weren’t an evaluator, what would you do instead?

More about Ann K. Emery
Ann K. Emery is a sought-after speaker who is determined to get your data out of spreadsheets and into stakeholders’ hands. Each year, she leads more than 100 workshops, webinars, and keynotes for thousands of people around the globe. Her design consultancy also overhauls graphs, publications, and slideshows with the goal of making technical information easier to understand for non-technical audiences.

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