ATLANTA — Isabelle Barnett graduated magna cum laude from Stetson University, in DeLand, Florida, in 2022. Armed with a degree in political science and a passion for nonprofit and local government work in sustainability, the Atlanta native began an internship with the city of Sandy Springs. But sometimes, what you learn from a first job — or even a second or third job — is what you don’t want to do for the rest of your life. It’s a lesson that opens a world of other possibilities.
“Speaking as a former career counselor, it’s not always about having a direct career path from point A to point B,” said Clarence Anthony Jr., workforce development manager at the Partnership for Innovation (PIN) and director of its PIN Fellowship program. “That’s not how careers work for most people.”
PIN, a public-private partnership housed at Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute, is dedicated to advancing innovation and expanding shared economic opportunity in Georgia and beyond
Barnett’s Sandy Springs internship involved research on sustainability projects for the city, work that she enjoyed, but that she knew she wouldn’t see the results of due to the often-slow pace of government. “I felt like at the end of it, ‘how am I going to create impact?’” Barnett said.
While she was in that position, her supervisor told her about PIN’s Fellowship program, a paid fellowship designed primarily for early career professionals who work for six months each in the public and private sectors of one industry to help drive innovation and promote economic mobility.
The idea resonated with Barnett. “It was a fellowship, so it was more than an internship, but it was a good way to transition into the workforce.”
Barnett was accepted into the first cohort of Fellows in 2023 in a hybrid experience within manufacturing and the logistics and supply chain vertical — not areas she expected to work in.
“The thing about supply chain is that it is so research heavy that it felt like I was doing a lot of similar work to undergrad with the political science focus,” she said. “You’re talking about workers’ rights and about efficiency. It was inherently political. I felt like I fit in really well with that.”
For the first six months she worked at the Georgia Tech Supply Chain and Logistics Institute. “I started with Georgia Tech doing mainly research about long-haul trucks, long-haul trucker rights, and their issues,” she said. “Very big-picture long-haul logistics. It was a combination of making things more efficient but also caring about the people who were doing the work.”
From Georgia Tech, she spent six months with Freudenberg NOK Sealing Technologies, an automotive supplier in Cleveland, Georgia, where she was again doing research.
“We were trying to implement a tugger system to replace forklifts,” she said. “Again, the goal was to help people in warehouses do less labor.”
Tuggers are small electric vehicles that pull multiple carts of materials around the warehouse more efficiently and more safely than forklifts.
Despite the obvious differences between long-haul trucking and warehouse work, Barnett said that in fact, the two positions had similarities, both were focused on worker safety and efficiency.
And that’s when her passion shifted. It wasn’t the mechanics of long-haul trucking or warehouse work that called to her, but the human experience.
Following the fellowship, Barnett landed a position with City of Refuge, a nonprofit organization in Atlanta that helps families with health and wellness, housing, youth development, and job training. Barnett’s job is workforce development was to “be the liaison between employers and our graduates coming out of software engineering or cybersecurity and matching them and getting them into employment.”
She was in the nonprofit world, where she knew she wanted to be, and she was making a difference that she could see. She has since moved to Per Scholas, another nonprofit organization that offers free training to people seeking a career in high-demand tech roles and then works to match them with employers.
Barnett may not have landed in manufacturing, supply chain, or logistics work, but she credits the Fellowship with helping her learn what she wanted to do and with teaching her valuable skills that help her in her workforce development role. Because the Fellowship is so much more than job placement. The program offers professional development, career counseling, mentoring—and an opportunity for Fellows to network with and learn from PIN Summer Interns.
“[The Fellowship] gave me insight into early career versus mid-career versus late career,” she said. “When I’m dealing with learners now, I … really do try to figure out ways to cater to their needs and figure out what’s the best path for them.”