Beata Bujalska Kramer is a Philosophy Alumni who is currently employed by Google Germany, based out of Munich, where she lives with her husband and two children. Beata began at CSUF as an English major, but after taking Intro to Philosophy with Dr. Amy Coplan, she quickly switched to Philosophy. Beata notes that, “Growing up, I was known as the ‘overanalyzer.’ Stepping into philosophy class twice a week, finally all the overthinking could be channeled into a productive and structured workspace.”
After gaining her Master's in Philosophy from Tufts University, Beata started working in Digital Communications for various non-profit, government and private organizations. She eventually landed at Google where she has held several positions over the last 5 years, ranging from Ad Operations Specialist to Digitization Manager.
“As I moved my skills to the tech world, philosophy continued to form the foundation of my career.”
Beata recalls that in one of her job interviews, she was asked “to develop a case study -- essentially defend a thesis -- with clear assumptions, a logical argument and a final conclusion, something I was prepared for thanks to the Philosophical Argument and Writing class.”
These skills still play a crucial role in her daily work at Google. “I often present extremely technical topics to non-technical audiences -- for example, Chief Marketing Officers trying to understand why their companies' ads are not appearing to a specific target group -- where clarity and precision in language are of utmost importance. Moreover, as I've started to move into programming, my training in Symbolic Logic has proved to be useful in understanding the fundamentals of coding, especially in building algorithms.”
Beata says she would “strongly recommend” the CSUF Philosophy program to students of all sorts, “whether they are thinking of a career in or outside of academia.” She emphasizes that our “faculty truly care about the students and dedicate countless hours to teaching and mentoring. The skills developed are transferable to a wide range of careers, particularly in the growing tech industry (some notable tech Philosophy majors: Reid Hoffman, cofounder of LinkedIn, & Patrick M. Byrne, founder & CEO of Overstock.com).”