Hello friends! Thank you so much for being interested in my life and what I have to say enough to come back for a second time. It sincerely means a lot. If you recall, last week I began to touch on the internship I have with Books & Such Literary Agency. I really want to explain to you what exactly I have been doing with them so future posts are easier to understand (heads up: this may be a bit longer of a post than usual…sorry about that!).
My first task consisted of creating a survey with about ten questions to send out to 394 Scripps humanities majors that graduated anywhere between 1973 and 2005. While I waited for responses, I began creating interview questions. The questions were similar to those in the survey, but aimed to receive a more in depth idea of their life since leaving Scripps. From the interview questions, I hoped to achieve three main goals:
1) Figure out where the graduate first went professionally after graduating.
2) How they got from there to now and if they have any ideas for their future.
3) What advice they wish someone had given them along the way.
After a week was up, I went through the survey responses and during my next meeting with my supervisor and we selected 20 women to reach out to for a Skype interview. In order to make the selection, we looked for responses that stood out, whether it was because of a very affirmative answer, an unexpected profession, or even their mentioned desire to be interviewed.
Now, of course, you are all probably wondering, “Okay…so what was this all for…?” Well, it’s your lucky day, because I was just about to tell you!
For all of you interested in the humanities, you will have an incredible opportunity this fall. Books & Such Literary Agency will bring their many years of experience within the world of writing, marketing, editing, and publishing to Scripps students. In October, there will be three seminars that teach humanities students how they can become more practical about considering options. They hope to make it clear that you have endless possibilities (contrary to the stereotypical image that all humanities majors will end up in coffee shops…) as long as you plan and evaluate each opportunity that comes your way. Using the graduates’ responses, you will see how the “real” world has treated humanities majors with a Scripps education.
The very first woman I interviewed- let’s call her Kate[1]– graduated in 2004 with an Honors degree in English. After getting her MA in Gender and Cultural Studies, her MLIS in Library and Information Science, and her PhD in English (ABD), she now works as a Reference and Interlibrary Loan Services Librarian (in addition to getting her PhD in Educational Leadership). I don’t know what y’all are thinking, but to me that’s a pretty intense resume. However, Kate was anything but intense during our interview. I was very nervous because it was my first interview, but right away she made me feel incredibly comfortable. With no hesitation, she told me about the strangest thing she ever had to look up for a student. A group of boys came up to her and asked her to help them come up with a harmless prank to pull on their friend. With her help, they were able to get glaze sheets (as in the kind that covers doughnuts) and put them under their friend’s bedding. As he slept that night, the glaze mixed with his sweat and when he woke up, he was glazed just like a doughnut!
Like I said in my previous post, I have always thought in my mind that I would end up writing. However, Kate was the first person to indirectly challenge that idea of mine. When I asked her whether she was currently in her dream job or if she thought something else lies in front of her, she said: “What you think you need is never going to be what you actually need.” I’ve always thought I wanted to be an author…so isn’t that what I need to do to truly become happy with my career? This statement made me (and still makes me) a bit queasy.
She told me that if she could have learned one thing along the way, she wished it were “not to worry too much about picking the degree that casts the widest net.” Kate majored in English because she thought it would give her more options than a Women and Gender Studies major would. She made the decision to potentially sacrifice happiness for the sake of a more “stable” future.
When the interview concluded, I sat down and thought about these two ideas of hers. I am majoring in what I love. Yes, there may be an other option that is “more practical” for me to major in, but I don’t want to spend my remaining three years studying something I am not passionate about. I want to look forward to papers (lol) and not dread going to class every day. If I want a practical option, maybe that will become my minor, or at least maybe I will take courses in that subject. With that in mind, I know that I am on the right path to my future. I may not know exactly what I need yet, but that is only because I don’t know where I will be in five, ten, fifteen years. However, I do know that if I have earned a degree in a subject I love, I will be better prepared to figure out what I need. I will have more options ahead of me and I will be able to grasp the answer tightly and use it to my advantage.
However, that’s just my take on her advice. What do you think of it? Have you ever dealt with need vs. want or struggled to choose between a dream and a practicality? I would love to read your comments below!
[1] For the privacy of the women, I will be keeping their names to myself throughout the course of the blog.