As I've gotten closer to graduating from college, I've had people ask me how I ended up on the path that I'm on and why I made the decisions that I did. It still makes me laugh a bit when someone asks me those questions because truthfully, I've never felt like I knew what I was doing. The short answer is that I continually made decisions that I thought would make me happier in the long run.
When I applied to Purdue, I already knew I didn't want to go there. No offense, Purdue, but I grew up in West Lafayette, Indiana, and I'd promised to my parents for eight years that I would be moving away for college. To my utter dismay, after all of the college applications had been submitted and returned, I found myself needing to make a decision between going to an out of state college (my dream) and taking out student loans, or staying here and graduating debt-free. I'm here, so obviously I chose the latter.
Applying to the Professional Writing (PW) program at Purdue wasn't a dream, it was a compromise. I'd been handed the family pressure at a young age and been told things along the lines of, "Look how great you are with Legos! You're going to be a fantastic engineer!" And, "Look how much you love to problem solve! Those are crucial skills for a scientist!" I am neither a scientist nor an engineer, and I have never been more proud to declare that. Instead, I am happy, because I compromised and chose PW.
To make a long story short in terms of the compromise, I wanted to be a creative writer. I was told I would never make any money and that it was a waste of a college experience. While I still beg to differ, I wouldn't trade the valuable insight I've gotten from my mentors in the PW program for anything.
What does PW mean to me?
Professional Writing, to me, means making information accessible for everyone, especially for those who didn't go get a four-year degree to understand the presented material. PW means leaving no one behind an education barrier. PW means everyone deserves to be able to understand what's being explained. Majoring in PW means you're personally responsible for making sure that no one is left behind.
Secondly, PW means I can go to work in any field that I want to. In the past three-and-a-half years, I have worked in the medical industry, the simulation software industry, and now the mailing industry. I've been a "Lead Medical Scribe," managing a team of 40+ in the Emergency Department and Internal Medicine Departments of a local hospital; I've been a "Technical Writer and Multimedia Specialist Co-op" for Ansys, the leading innovator in multiphysics engineering simulation software; and I've been an Associate Technical Writer for Engineering Innovation, a mail and parcel sorting company, here in Lafayette, Indiana. My degree in PW made it possible for me to explore any field that I want to, and trust me, I plan on exploring more.
The true necessity for PW comes from the realization that all fields need a team member that can communicate to the lay audience. Products fail when the lay audience cannot be reached. Your design can be as innovative and ground-breaking as you want, but if you don't have a writer that can communicate those innovations to the consumer, your product still fails when it comes to market because the consumers don't understand it.
My dirty secret.
I'm minoring in philosophy. But, Kat, how could you!? Hear me out.
Remember how I told you that I make decisions based on what I think will make me happy in the long run? Welcome to how I decided to minor in Philosophy. Every day we are bombarded with a multitude of different world perspectives and moral and ethical value bases. It is not critical that we agree with every single one of those, but I have found that I am much more satisfied when I can rationally understand where someone is coming from, even if I don't agree with them. Fun fact, we don't have to agree with someone in order to understand where they are drawing their moral and ethical bases from and it makes it much easier to determine what moral/ethical hills are worth dying on.
Coupling PW with Philosophy means I am more equipped to ensure I am not excluding any audiences when I write. I can be conscientious that I am not writing any divisive opinions and that I am not offending anyone by asserting my own personal opinions. The goal remains the same at the end of the day: to reach as many people as possible. Coupling philosophy with PW helps me do just that.
So what's your post-college plan?
This is where things get the messiest. I have always wanted to move out of Indiana. Staying here for college has only made that more apparent for me. I even completed a nine-month internship in Pittsburgh and recognized how eye-opening and perspective-changing it was to be outside of my home town... but yet, here I am back in Indiana and the timing isn't right at the moment in terms of my personal life. I've accepted a full-time job offer here and I plan on being here for at least the next year or so.
My biggest downfall is that I've always wanted to meticulously plan out every step in my life, but life just doesn't work that way. I'm not saying that you shouldn't make plans, make plans all you want! But don't expect for those plans to be set in stone. I was diagnosed with an auto-immune disease during my Sophomore year of college and boy did that set my plans back a bit. But you're all strong and you can recover from anything, no matter how large the setback. Trust me, I've been there and I know. Keep your eyes and your heart set on what you want from your life, pursue that in the best way you know how, and I promise you that you will be fine.
Comments
Post a Comment