4 Alumni with Majors That Led Them in Unexpected and Successful Directions

Early on in her internship at L'Oréal, Megan Malhame (B'15) found that her minor in classical studies set her apart.

The alumna was inspired by illustrations in her mythology textbooks, and, years later, continues to bring this creativity to her day job as director of L'Oréal skincare for Walgreens.

"It just goes to show that you don't have to be the quintessential in-a-box kind of archetype. You can do things that are different," she said.

Danyel Semple (C'15), an attorney at a record label who works with Billie Eilish and Kendrick Lamar, found her sociology degree helped her contextualize and understand the business landscape and her artists' backgrounds.

Hear from four alumni, whose liberal arts majors led them in unexpected directions - and helped them get where they are today.

Skincare and Mythology

Megan Malhame studied marketing and classical studies at Georgetown.

Alumna Megan Malhame (B'15) oversees L'Oréal's Garnier, Thayers and L'Oréal Paris skincare lines in Walgreens. She ensures its products hit their sales targets in stores across the U.S.

Malhame has risen through the ranks of L'Oréal since interning there in college. She's wielded her marketing background from the School of Business, analytics know-how and long-time passion for beauty. But she has another tool in her back pocket: her classical studies minor.

"When you delve into [mythology], you see there are more interpretations. There are more ways to go about things," she said. "I think that mindset helps a lot, especially if I encounter a tough business situation or I want to go about a launch plan in a different way. The creativity of classical studies, the creativity of beauty, they do meld together in that way."

The Long Island native grew up fascinated by both mythology and beauty. She'd pore over books about Greek gods and goddesses and ad campaigns in fashion magazines. Malhame chose Georgetown for its marketing and classical studies programs, and found that both tracks allowed her to deepen her passions.

When Malhame interned at L'Oréal, her classical studies minor set her apart, she said. She created a website of branding and lifestyle opportunities for the company that was inspired by imagery in her textbooks.

"When you go into a place like beauty, it's being able to take this out-of-the-box thinking, getting into the artistry of it all," she said. "How do you go outside the written lines and do something a bit different than what was originally expected? That happens every day in our job."

To this day, she still finds she uses her classics studies minor in her day job.

"It just goes to show that you don't have to be the quintessential in-a-box kind of archetype. You can do things that are different," she said.

Sobalvarro (far right) with his School of Medicine anatomy group in 2024.

Literature and Treating Patients

Michael Sobalvarro (C'16, M'29) is a third-year medical student at Georgetown.

These days, his bachelor's degree in English may seem a far cry from pharmacology and orthopedic spine research. But Sobalvarro finds the two worlds interconnected.

"When you're an English major, you're given a book or a collection of stories, and your job is to synthesize and organize seemingly random collections of stories into a coherent argument or take," he said.

"It's the same thing when you're a detective in medicine. It's a story, essentially. The patient has this history, they've taken this drug and your job is to synthesize what seem to be unrelated things, pull the most important detail, and come to a diagnosis and a treatment plan. It's the same thing I used to do in English class."

Sobalvarro caught the medical bug early on. Growing up as the oldest son of Nicaraguan immigrants in Silver Spring, Maryland, he watched his parents struggle to access medical resources. He found himself wanting to heal and take care of them.

"I wanted to be the doctor my parents never had," he said.

Sobalvarro (right), a former fellow for the Lannan Center For Poetics & Social Practice, moderated a Lannan series with author George Pelecanos (left) at Georgetown in 2012.

But when Sobalvarro arrived at Georgetown, he struggled with his biology courses and pursued an English degree instead. He felt most at home in the English department, where he excelled in class, writing and analyzing new worlds.

After graduating, Sobalvarro returned to his medical track, taking pre-medical courses at the University of Maryland and completing the Georgetown Experimental Medical Studies baccalaureate program before enrolling in the School of Medicine.

Nowadays, he finds his English degree gives him a superpower in his studies now and in his future role meeting with patients.

"It's one thing to diagnose a patient. It's another thing to break down that diagnosis into terms they can actually use. To educate them so they leave feeling empowered, not scared. The clinicians I admire most are those who use images and stories to make a diagnosis less frightening, more digestible. You can see it. Patients walk away calmer. They feel in control of their body again."

Recently, a friend asked Sobalvarro if he would still major in English, given his roundabout path to medical school.

"Absolutely," he said. "The English department taught me that the most important stories are often the ones that go untold, and medicine is full of those. Patients carry narratives that sometimes never make it into a chart. Learning to listen for them, and to honor them, is something I trace directly back to my time in that department.

"I believe that to be a good physician, you first have to be a good person, and that's where I grew the most as an undergrad. I'm still a work in progress. But the world calls on different kinds of healers, and I'm grateful to be becoming one of them."

Sociology and Record Labels

As an attorney at an LA record label, Danyel Semple (C'15) works with a roster of major artists, like Billie Eilish, Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole, Finneas and Vincent Mason. She recently handled the production agreement for Lamar's "Not Like Us" music video.

"Anything that happens with my artist, I am the attorney who handles it," said Semple, vice president of business and legal affairs at Interscope Records.

Semple has planned to be a lawyer since she was 10 years old. A degree in sociology was not in her life plan, though.

The New York native arrived on the Hilltop in 2011 and set out to study history. She stumbled on a Russian literature class in the Department of Slavic Languages that read like "a Law & Order SVU season description" and loved it. She looked into more sociology offerings.

"There was a Latino sociology class, political sociology classes studying political systems from all over the world, and I found that I could find my niche and pick the things that I was interested in as a person, as my identity, while really never leaving the Sociology Department," she said.

Semple switched her major to sociology and added a minor in film and media studies, a longtime interest and passion. Her senior year, she applied to the GEMA externship, where she met with alumni in the entertainment and media fields in Los Angeles, and realized the West Coast was her next step.

After graduating, Semple fulfilled her dreams of law school and becoming an entertainment attorney. Her sociology degree, she says, has helped her better contextualize and understand the world, the business landscape, her artists' backgrounds and even the city she lives and works in.

"The sociology department, the film and media studies department, GEMA, the Georgetown Scholarship Program, the 1789 scholarship - all of those organizations helped me become the person that I am and move through the world in the way that I'm able to be myself and have this education," she said. "Georgetown has given me so much. I really am so grateful to be in the network of such great Hoyas."

Global Reporting and Italian Studies

Alison Kodjak (SFS'91) majored in Italian and European Studies at Georgetown.

Alison Kodjak (SFS'91) is the assistant managing editor for national news at ProPublica. Over her 32-year career, Kodjak has reported for the Associated Press, NPR and Bloomberg News, earned Emmy and Peabody Awards and served as president of the National Press Club.

And while she's dedicated her career to journalism, Kodjak didn't plan to end up there.

In fact, she arrived at Georgetown with one goal.

"All I wanted to do was go and travel more and learn more languages where I could speak to more people," she said.

Kodjak had spent her junior year of high school studying abroad in Rennes, France. She was eager to return and looked for a school where she could learn languages and study abroad.

Georgetown's then School of Languages and Linguistics fit the bill, and Kodjak majored in Italian and European Studies. She took intensive classes in Italian every morning, learned about linguistics, Italian literature and European history, and studied in Siena, Italy, her junior year. As she graduated, Kodjak wanted to see more of the world. But there was one problem.

"By the time I graduated, there was a recession. There weren't people clamoring for Italian majors out there in the world," she said.

Kodjak got a job at the Italian car company Fiat in Washington, DC, and read theWashington Post while at work. She struck up a correspondence with a Post columnist, and found herself more and more intrigued by journalism.

Decades later, after a master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University and reporting gigs all over the world, Kodjak finds that her Italian degree and studying abroad have shaped her understanding of the world and approach to work.

"I have walked into homes of extraordinarily poor people and extraordinarily powerful people and and people going through major crises for work. Being able to talk to them and ask questions and listen to what they have to say - I think studying abroad and learning a foreign language and culture is the foundation that helps to do that," she said.

Looking back, Kodjak said she would still major in a language if she could do it all over again.

"I came out of college with a hard skill," she said. "Not everybody does."