Dorissa Martinez
Archivist
National Archives and Records Administration
Yorba Linda, CA USA
“It turns out that when you love what you do, the money finds you. ”
Milestones
My road in life took a while to figure out.
Teaching. As a history major, everyone makes you believe that you need to be a teacher. I believed it too, but then realized it was a completely unfulfilling job.
Legal Secretary / Paralegal. Surrounded by a ton of people in this field, I thought maybe I would go to law school some day—glad I didn't.
Corporate Sales. Great money, but horrible working conditions. People were more concerned with getting ahead than being decent human beings. My happiest day was being laid-off.
Unpaid Internship. This is where I was able to really find my passion. I was fortunate because I had money in the bank to explore my options.
Keep following my journey
Education
High School
St. Lucy's Prior High School
St. Lucy's Prior High School
Career
Archivist
I assess, organize, preserve, and make available records of the Nixon Administration (1969-1974).
Career Roadmap
My work combines:
My work combines:
Government
Education
Helping People
Day to Day
Typically I spend my day providing reference services for researchers or on a processing project. Reference services can be anywhere from meeting with a new on-site researcher or responding to email requests related to our holdings. If I'm not working on reference requests, I'm reviewing an unprocessed collection and preparing it to be released to the public.
Advice for Getting Started
Here's the first step for college students
Interning, which can be hard financially, but it will be so worth it in the end. It's super hard to find a job if you don't have any experience, so even if you have to work 4 weekend jobs just to intern once or twice a week it will be worth it in the long-run.
Recommended Education
My career is related to what I studied. I'd recommend the path I took:
Hurdles
The Noise I Shed
From Society in General:
"It's more important to make a lot of money."
Challenges I Overcame
Financial
