Sun Devil Spotlight: Aidan Curley

Education has always been an important part of Aidan Curley’s life.

“Growing up, I loved school,” Curley said. “My mom's a kindergarten teacher, and I was a curious kid who asked ‘Why?’ about everything.”

After finishing high school, Curley knew his next chapter included college. He decided a large university wasn’t right for him at the time, so he began taking business classes at a community college in his hometown of New York.

Soon thereafter, Curley put his coursework to the test.

“I was a business administration major and I was like, ‘What's the best way to learn business? Let's start my own business,’” Curley explained. “I started my own business when I was in my final year getting my associate degree at a community college, and that business was a marketing agency serving local spas, restaurants and bars. I was doing their social media, creating websites and running advertisements.”

While Curley believes it was beneficial to start his own business while in school, he admits it came with its challenges — one of the biggest being the legal aspects.

“It was a lot at 18 years old, but I thought it was the best way to learn business,” Curley said.

As Curley continued to run his business and complete his associate degree, he found himself looking for a creative outlet. With a passion for cars, he began reaching out to people with Lamborghinis and Ferraris on social media. Curley then started filming cars, which led to him founding his own supercar TikTok account, carcontent.

In the midst of this venture, Curley found he enjoyed the analytical side of social media. He enrolled in a 12-week data science bootcamp, and began working as a marketing manager for a surgeon. It was then Curley realized he needed a degree to take his work to the next level.

"I began looking for data scientist positions and, while I was making it to fourth-round interviews, I wasn’t getting offers. The employers kept saying it was because I didn’t have a bachelor’s degree,” Curley said.

After completing extensive research on different schools and programs, Curley decided to transfer to ASU Online’s Bachelor of Science in marketing.

“Being an online student, I had the privilege to work with organizations of many different sizes. I love being at the company I'm at now and the size that they're at,” Curley said. “It's interesting because I went to ASU because I wanted to join one of these huge companies like Facebook, Amazon or Apple, but now I'm in love with the startup world and I just want to lead marketing and early-stage startups.”

For Curley, graduation symbolizes the past five years of experience coming together. 

“I have the skills, work experience and the degree. I'm ready to join the workforce and accept a full-time offer.”