50 jobs in 50 states in 50 weeks

Daniel Seddiqui will speak on his mission of completing 50 jobs in 50 states in 50 weeks during Family Weekend at Bridgewater College.

The program will be held on Friday, Sept. 30, at 7 p.m. in Cole Hall. Sponsored by the Harold H. Hersch Endowed Lecture Series, the convocation is free and open to the public.

Upon graduation from the University of Southern California, Seddiqui was uncertain as to his career path. His first position was tutoring elementary students and he says, “I knew right off the bat tutoring wasn’t for me. I had to find a position that motivated me to wake up every morning.”

Seddiqui has a passion for sports and found a book with contact information for every college coach in the United States. Emailing all 18,000 coaches asking for a job, he received 250 offers and accepted a position in cross country at Northwestern University. Moving to Chicago he found he enjoyed the adventure of living in a new environment where nothing was certain. Since it was a volunteer cross country position, Seddiqui supported himself with any job he was able to find – from painting stairs to accounting work at a biomedical firm.

After a year, Seddiqui moved to a small town in southern Indiana with his former head coach at Northwestern. It was here that he tasted grilled corn on the cob for the first time, saw Amish people and shot a gun. These experiences fueled his appetite and he wanted to experience more. Now, it is his job to showcase careers, cultures and cities.

Seddiqui documented his journey in the book50 Jobs in 50 States: One Man’s Journey of Discovery Across America. Beginning in September 2008 he explored the many careers, environments and cultures that America has to offer including a border patrol agent in Arizona, a model in North Carolina, a rodeo announcer in South Dakota, a gardener at Monticello in Virginia and a marine biologist in Washington. His ultimate goal was to help people understand each other’s lives and respect each other’s hard work.