Saturday, September 16, 2006 | by nathan

My Report On What I Want To Be When I Grow Up

Today was the last day of my speechwriting class. I got an A on my final project, and Nate, the prof, wrote a note on my draft saying that I could write speeches professionally. It’s something I enjoy doing, and so that’s a pretty cool thing to hear.

Sometimes I get discouraged because I’m 26 and just now getting my master’s degree. I had lunch with my friend Will during our class break today and we were discussing our frustrations with the program we are in. The fact is, within our journalism college, the grad students in the professional writing program are pretty much the bottom of the totem pole. A lot of the time, this is fine with me. I could conceive a situation where the college decided they wanted to exploit us to make themselves look good, thereby forcing us to publish works with which we are not pleased, or putting a lot more pressure on us than is healthy.

Sometimes, being overlooked is just what the artist needs to create freely. And this is fine.

However. I am under no illusion that this program is of some huge academic boon to me. I did an undergraduate degree in religion and philosophy, which, while professionally useless, taught me how to learn, and think, and think critically. It taught me how to sort out issues for myself and deconstruct worldviews - all the things a good liberal arts education should do. I wouldn’t change a thing about what I studied as an undergrad.

Nor would I choose not to do this program I am in now. But unlike my undergraduate degree, I am being completely pragmatic about what I am doing here. In the academic sense I do not feel as if I am learning a whole lot. Yes, I feel it has made me a better writer in some ways, though I feel that most of that has just been shortcutting things I would have learned on my own.

What I am doing here is gaining practical advantage. I want to be a writer - so far I am well on my way. I am gaining knowledge of the publishing business and the industry that is mass communications. I am making connections and getting practical skills - whether I want to use them or not. I got my internship last spring through this program, and it was through that that I have the job I have now.

I just spent an hour online looking for educational public relations jobs in New York and San Francisco - CUNY, NYU, Columbia, Berkeley. Not saying I want to leave Oklahoma. I’m just saying that, for the first time in years, I feel that I have qualifications that will open doors for me.

I got out of Oklahoma at 18. I came back at 22. I regret neither. But when you spend four years having your brain ripped open, rebuilt, and put back in (read: getting a Wake degree), and then you can only get a job in retail, you begin to doubt yourself, just the tiniest little bit. 

That’s why I’m getting this degree. It’s why I’m working my ass off to maintain a 4.0 GPA, which I have done for three semesters. It’s why I talked up Jim Risen when he came to speak to my class the other day. My undergraduate degree helped teach me how to think, and conceptualize, and find my own way in the world. It showed me the road. My master’s gave me the car.

I feel a little crass, being so pragmatic about my education. I used to hate it in college when people took the MCAT, the LSAT, GRE and every other possible graduate-entry test because they were damned to hell if they weren’t going to make a lot of money after college.

I don’t care as much about money as I care about doing what I want to do. I want to write. Barring a career jetting around doing talks, readings, and book tours, I wouldn’t mind working publications and PR at a large (preferably private) university or nonprofit organization. Hell - maybe I’ll be a speechwriter. Columbia needs one. Berkeley’s law school needs someone to create and edit their alumni magazine - um, hello? What’s my job?

Easy, Nate - graduation’s in May (hopefully). Life is good. Life is great, actually, and there’s no rush.