Career Choices

We all know how it goes.

There you are, standing at a crossroads, facing a choice: the non-practical one that you love, or the practical one that you can make money with?

I feel like I should say here that this is not necessary a right vs. wrong, or good vs. bad decision. Maybe I'm saying that mostly for myself, because it usually takes me so long just to sort out what I really want that it's sometimes hard for me to sacrifice even little things that I care about for the sake of the more practical path.

Here's an example. My first year and a half of college was spent in often gut-wrenching indecision. I didn't know what to major in, and I felt that the rest of my life and happiness rested on that one decision. Not to mention the fact that it made registering for classes a very stressful experience. So I took an acting class, and I took some music classes, and I knocked out a couple of gen-eds, but by the end of my first year I still felt like I had gone nowhere. Of course, that's not entirely true; I've learned that growth happens whether you realize it or not, but the question still remained, what was I going to do?

Third semester my interest in writing and radio really caught on fire. It started as a paper project, where for paper credit I produced and edited a short podcast about my experience being in a play. It was a blast, and I was very proud of the result, even though it's all quite amateur. I started thinking about journalism, and how much I love radio shows like This American Life, and I learned about a field of study and literature that I had never even heard of before: Literary Non-Fiction, or Creative Non-Fiction.

"Any or all forms of the essay may be enlivened and made more meaningful through attention to imagery, voice, character, setting and scene - the elements of imaginative writing. Such essays may be called literary non-fiction or creative non-fiction, terms to describe the kinds of essays that include the personal but don't necessarily stay there, that include the factual but search for the greater range and resonance."

That's from my great writing book, which I recommend to anybody interested in being a better and more thoughtful writer (or reader, or person in general); it's called "Imaginative Writing: The Elements of Craft" by Janet Burroway. I used the 2nd edition, even though it's not the most recent, mostly because that's the one my creative writing instructor made us buy.

I love creative non-fiction because it's informative, and it has credence because it's about real people and real events (like the news), but it's not boring (in that way, unlike the news). I think Janet Burroway says it well, as she always does:

"In a first-person essay . . . you would have 'distance' [on your topic], a perspective that embraces not just the immediate event but its place in a human, social, historical, even cosmic context. Because creative non-fiction has this deeper (or wider, or more universal, or significant) subject, it won't necessarily date in the manner of yesterday's newspaper."

Okay, enough examples of why I love creative non-fiction. The point is, last fall I finally had somewhat of a grasp on what I wanted to do. I wanted to write! I wanted to learn how to be an imaginative, creative non-fiction writer, and I wanted to (maybe) work in radio someday, maybe for a show like This American Life, brining thoughtful, insightful, funny, real stories to my audience. And I decided to choose my major: English, with an emphasis in creative writing.

And now, I'm considering changing it. Probably not drastically, but I may switch to the more practical technical/professional writing emphasis, and take creative writing classes as electives.

When I first started thinking about this, it upset me. Finally, I had found something in college that I wanted to study, and now I was facing the possibility of letting that go. But the more I thought about it and looked into it, the more reasonable it started to seem. The classes sound interesting, and practicality can't be ignored entirely. Jordan and I are on a tight budget right now, and when he goes to grad school I'll be the one working more and making most of the money (which is what he's doing now while I finish my undergrad). We want to have children someday, and those children are going to need a good home, good schools, and college funds. Maybe that's looking too far ahead; maybe not. There is a future that we want, and there are certain pragmatic steps to be taken in order to prepare for it.

It's a constant struggle, it seems, the practical vs. the . . . I'm not really sure what to call it. Non-practical? Purely enjoyable? Hobby-ish? I believe there is value to things like music and art and creative writing, and I know other people do, too; if not, those kinds of things wouldn't be out there, it wouldn't even be an option. But as my World Literature professor once said, we may say we value certain things very highly, but our actions say otherwise (i.e. who doesn't value education? Yet how much do we pay teachers for their efforts?)

We'll see how it all turns out. Another thing I'm learning is that a lot of things turn out differently than you expect, or even plan, them to. But that's not necessarily a bad thing.