Road to Grad: Fork in the Road

8/1/2019

Writing has been my dream since as long as I could remember. Hell, ask a family member, and they will tell you that I off in the corner somewhere scribbling in a notebook about something. Writing wasn't just a hobby but a passion that I have coveted at the tender age of four? Or maybe six? It has been so long that I can't exactly remember my origin story. So with this fire under my belly, I tried shoving it away for years for my father had always told me I was "too smart" to be a starving artist, so I went to school for business.

However, writing was still in the back of my mind so I had to pursue this just may be a bit further down the line. Fast forward to Spring 2018, when I was accepted into The City College of New York MFA Creative Writing. I was elated and pleased to be given this opportunity but something happened. I was bored and not in an I am too good for this course but in a ... this is not how I foresee this going. I already had my BA in English, Creative Writing so I expected that in graduate school it would be different. Unfortunate that wasn't the case, and it wasn't that the courses were bad. I had great professors, and the subjects were interesting but the number of literature courses versus workshop courses was greatly unmatched. The requirements consist of five workshops courses, and eight literature courses, and one thesis course. You can only take these course one per semester and I just do not feel that is enough. I understand that you need literature to learn about writing but I feel at this point this amount was too uneven.

So what did I do? 

I switched programs like the crazy person I am and now I attend a new college with a new major. I went from Creative Writing to International Crime and Justice at John Jay College. While this leap was far, it wasn't entirely, my minor was professional communications and at John Jay, my focus is on advocacy policies and research. Its writing overall but just a different type. I think I will go back for Creative Writing or Publishing through an online program but for now, in this fork in the road, I went left.