Pegah Taylor is an alum of the Canfield Business Honors program and was born and raised in Houston. As a student at an engineering magnet high school, she developed a solid foundation in math and science. While she realized she did not want to be an engineer, she still wanted to build upon her strong math background as she explored. Business seemed like the perfect career to do so, especially given how broad it was.
The Canfield Business Honors program was especially compelling due to the small class sizes. Pegah had visited her older brother at UT and felt at home socially and academically–there was an atmosphere on campus that felt unlike any other college. The size of UT was also appealing as it gave her many possible paths, and Canfield Business Honors helped make a large university feel small. This was especially important for Pegah since she came from a small high school.
To discover the different corners of business, Pegah took part in a thrilling one month study-abroad, Business in Brazil (this specific program is now discontinued, but there are many other destinations and programs). Everyday, she and her classmates learned about a different discipline with a different professor–she cycled through accounting, finance, management information systems (MIS), and even sociology. Through this program, Pegah discovered that her passions lied in leveraging her skills to strengthen communities. Once back at UT, she had a firm direction: developing strong technical skills and using them within the realm of social impact.
Shortly after, Pegah added an MIS major and the Ethics and Leadership certification from the Bridging Disciplines program which provided mentorship in education and further directed her interests to the space. She completed all of her internships in the education sector, and her BHP advisors were incredibly supportive, helping her discover an opportunity at the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. Canfield Business Honors emphasized having multiple skillsets and allowed Pegah to develop sharp analytical and critical-thinking abilities while applying them outside of business.
As graduation approached, Pegah was stuck deciding to pursue IT consulting, which aligned with her MIS major, and being a teacher through Teach for America – KIPP Texas. At this critical point, a mentor advised her to choose Teach for America since she could always pivot to IT consulting, and to take a risk instead of the secure route. Moreover, being “on the ground” as a teacher would be a great learning experience early in her career and inspire her. Pegah took the advice and has not looked back since. At KIPP Texas, Pegah ascended to Assistant Principal and eventually founded and became the principal of a middle school in the neighborhood she grew up in in Houston, where her parents moved to from Iran.
The past six years, Pegah has been on the talent development side of education, where she is leading a pipeline program to help educators grow and progress along their career trajectory through leadership development and coaching. Her firsthand experience in education enables her to excel at her position, where she oversees initiatives in academics, operations, and community. Education is a difficult career to stay in and has a high turnover of teachers and principals. As a principal, she realized how she wanted to attract and retain people into the most important sector that is educating future generations. Few enter education for the money, but Pegah hopes to make educators feel rich in their soul. She realized this was one of her superpowers–making people conscious of their own superpowers and using it to make change in the world through education.
When asked to reflect on college and her career, Pegah emphasized that business is a very fluid track. There is a lot of pressure for students to decide on what they want to pursue early on, but it is not necessary to. Whatever you are doing, do it well. But it doesn’t have to be set in stone. For instance, Pegah did engineering in high school and coding / business in college. She does not use many of those direct skills today, but bits and pieces, such as when running multi-million budgets in her role. Most importantly, she learned transferable skills that she still relies on, including problem solving, how to work with different people, and stakeholder management. There are so many options at your fingertips–you do not have to change tracks completely to do what you want. The transferability of skills is much more important than the career path you choose.