One of my favorite TED talks is Emilie Wapnick's “Why Some of Us Don’t Have One True Calling.” In it, she introduces and defines the term “multipotentialite,” or someone who is drawn to and excels in many different fields. Listening to it, I was reminded of Steve Jobs’s renowned speech at Stanford’s 2005 Commencement ceremony. I had always loved the detail that Jobs’s whimsical decision to take a calligraphy course in college had had an enormous influence on the design and overall aesthetic of Apple products. As a junior in college, I was struck by the idea that the seemingly disparate things I was learning might come together in an unpredictable career path.
As a child, I loved Greek mythology and read every mythology book I could find in the library, from the illustrated to the academic. Choosing my courses freshman year of college, I was delighted to stumble on Introduction to Classical Mythology. My reading for class never felt like homework, and extra credit assignments to watch the film version were basically my idea of a great Friday night. I ended up becoming a Classics major and spent a year studying in Rome. But unlike the other Classics majors, I didn’t want to go on archaeological digs. I wanted to read literature and poetry and plays, the fundamental stories of Western Civilization. And when I applied to graduate school, I was ready to dive down a different rabbit hole.
I started my master’s program assuming I would become an English professor, living somewhere snowy and wearing a lot of earth tones. I pinged between medieval literature, Romantic poets, and whatever category Michael Chabon falls into, reluctant to pick one when the connections between them were so compelling. I loved thinking about the people behind these stories, and understanding why they shared their ideas in the way they did from historical, psychological, and linguistic perspectives.
When I finished my master's degree, I wanted to do something meaningful, something where I could read and write, and talk to people about something that mattered. Searching for that on Craigslist turned up very little though. I started teaching test prep which gave me the very welcome opportunity to lecture people about their grammar, and interact with 16 and 17-year-olds in the middle of a singularly exciting and stressful time in their lives. I quickly found myself much more engaged by our conversations about applying to college than I was by Critical Reading passages, and I once again shifted my focus.
Since 2014, I have been working as a college counselor and essay specialist with Collegewise. It’s exactly as Steve Jobs said, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward.” When people asked me what I wanted to major in, I had mumbled something about finance and French and international business. And when people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I didn’t know independent college counselor was even an option. But looking backward, the dots all line up. Becoming fluent in the language of storytelling in college and grad school, learning to demystify the subtleties of the SAT and ACT, even my high school years as a musical theater geek have given me the tools to help my students express themselves in the limited pages of their college applications. And now that I’m grown up, that’s exactly what I do.
As a child, I loved Greek mythology and read every mythology book I could find in the library, from the illustrated to the academic. Choosing my courses freshman year of college, I was delighted to stumble on Introduction to Classical Mythology. My reading for class never felt like homework, and extra credit assignments to watch the film version were basically my idea of a great Friday night. I ended up becoming a Classics major and spent a year studying in Rome. But unlike the other Classics majors, I didn’t want to go on archaeological digs. I wanted to read literature and poetry and plays, the fundamental stories of Western Civilization. And when I applied to graduate school, I was ready to dive down a different rabbit hole.
I started my master’s program assuming I would become an English professor, living somewhere snowy and wearing a lot of earth tones. I pinged between medieval literature, Romantic poets, and whatever category Michael Chabon falls into, reluctant to pick one when the connections between them were so compelling. I loved thinking about the people behind these stories, and understanding why they shared their ideas in the way they did from historical, psychological, and linguistic perspectives.
When I finished my master's degree, I wanted to do something meaningful, something where I could read and write, and talk to people about something that mattered. Searching for that on Craigslist turned up very little though. I started teaching test prep which gave me the very welcome opportunity to lecture people about their grammar, and interact with 16 and 17-year-olds in the middle of a singularly exciting and stressful time in their lives. I quickly found myself much more engaged by our conversations about applying to college than I was by Critical Reading passages, and I once again shifted my focus.
Since 2014, I have been working as a college counselor and essay specialist with Collegewise. It’s exactly as Steve Jobs said, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward.” When people asked me what I wanted to major in, I had mumbled something about finance and French and international business. And when people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I didn’t know independent college counselor was even an option. But looking backward, the dots all line up. Becoming fluent in the language of storytelling in college and grad school, learning to demystify the subtleties of the SAT and ACT, even my high school years as a musical theater geek have given me the tools to help my students express themselves in the limited pages of their college applications. And now that I’m grown up, that’s exactly what I do.