Quinton Bent - '19
Clear Language for a Complex Path: How a Liberal Arts Education Led to Quinton Bent’s Tech Success
When Quinton Bent graduated from Southern Wesleyan University with an English degree in 2019, he didn’t envision himself working in tech.
“Tech found me,” Bent explains, describing his entry into the field. Today, he’s one of just three content designers at Yelp, collaborating with over 40 product designers to shape how millions of users interact with the platform.
Fresh out of college and back home in Canada, Bent landed at a small startup called Mapsted, developing indoor mapping technology. As the company’s sole writer, Bent found himself doing everything from marketing copy to sales decks. But he noticed something that would shape his career trajectory: the product’s language was too complex for average users.
“It was a bunch of very smart engineers and lawyers writing very formal sentences for the average person,” Bent recalls. This observation led him to explore user experience (UX) writing, though at the time, he didn’t even know the field existed. After seeing positive results from his interventions, Bent realized this could be more than just a project. It could be a profession.
Bent’s path forward wasn’t immediately clear. After burning out at the startup, Bent pivoted briefly to real estate. However, a serendipitous connection with a former colleague who worked at Yelp opened the door to his current role, where he’s been advancing rapidly for the past three years.
Bent credits his liberal arts education at Southern Wesleyan for preparing him for success in tech. “Poetry, creative writing, grammar, modern linguistics—I liked the diversity that the program offered,” he reflects. This broad foundation gave him the confidence to tackle various writing and educational challenges he faced in the tech world.
One class in particular stands out: Dr. Paul Schleifer’s creative writing course where students offer weekly criticism of each other’s work. That experience mirrors his current role, where collaborative feedback is essential. “That’s essentially what we do here on a daily basis,” Bent notes. For someone who describes himself as “a natural introvert,” these classroom experiences helped prepare him for high-stakes meetings with colleagues and tech executives.
Today, Bent focuses on Yelp for Business, working to connect local businesses with great people. His work requires a delicate balance of technical precision and human touch, something AI tools can assist with but never replace. “It’s less about the actual writing skills,” he explains. “Everyone can write at a decent level in the company. It’s more how you collaborate and work with your peers that really separates you.”
Most of Bent’s colleagues join Yelp after years at agencies or smaller startups. Bent arrived earlier in his career, but he’s not feeling the industry-standard three-year itch to move on. “I still think I have a lot more to learn in the industry,” he says, suggesting that his liberal arts foundation has given him not just skills, but a lasting appetite for learning.
Bent’s penchant for human connection, clear communication, and the ability to make complex things simple—these are precisely the skills a SWU liberal arts education aims to develop, even if their specific application isn’t always clear at graduation.