Congratulations Class of 2008
As this semester’s Communications Liaison and an outgoing senior myself, I want to thank all my GW professors for their support, guidance and instruction over the past four years. As I depart with a degree in English & Creative Writing as well as a minor in Art History, equipped with a liberal arts education that will guarantee me no job, I feel confident about the future. We’re leaving college as articulate, thoughtful, well-read individuals, and we have our English classes to thank for that. Though my post-graduation plans consist of a summer in China teaching English and then a giant question mark, I am certain my new English BA is my greatest asset for attaining my next goal, whatever it may be.
Here is a sample of what other fellow seniors are doing next year:
I’m going to have a junior position at a PR firm in DC… I got a job in Orlando, Florida as a pagination editor for a newspaper editing company called Reed Brennan Media Associates. I am in charge of roughly 40 newspapers’ games and features pages… I will be working for Deloitte Consulting as a Human Capital Analyst in DC… I am going to University of Toronto to do my Masters in English as well as do a collaborative program in Book History and Culture… I will be moving to Madrid for the school year, and I’ll be teaching English in the Spanish school system. I’ve been accepted as a North American Language and Culture Assistant to Spain through the Spanish government’s Department of Education… I will be living in Alexandria, VA, and hopefully working in DC pursuing a career in publishing, public relations, or HR… I will be going to graduate school to attempt to complete a PhD. From there, I hope to become a professor in English… After graduation, I’m very excited to be relocating to New York City. I’m hoping to get a job as an editorial assistant, so I get my foot in the door of the publishing world… I will be living in DC for at least a year. I am trying to find a job – haven’t found one yet – but I am looking to work with youth in some capacity… I am going to be starting graduate school this summer. I’ll be getting my Master’s in Elementary Education, and then will hopefully go on to teach in the DC area… I will be jobless, but not friendless, in New York City… I have been working for Amazement Square, a nonprofit children’s museum in Lynchburg, VA (my hometown). My job title is Development Assistant, which means grant writer extraordinaire. I write the bulk of the museum’s funding requests both to foundations and individuals… Next year I will be attending The Louis D. Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville in Louisville, Kentucky… Next year I will be attending Manhattan School of Music to begin a graduate (Masters in Music) program in Classical Voice… I will be moving to New York City and hope to soon be working at a public relations firm… For the next year, or however long, I’ll be working on recording and self-releasing an album of (mostly) my own original songs, with the current tentative title of “The Whispering Golden Light at the Intersection of 27th and Calvert in Greg’s Mind”… I completed an internship with a public relations firm in February, then I started full time with Deloitte Consulting as a Federal Analyst–we apply consulting practices to the federal government… I got a job as a copy editor for the National Council of La Raza, which is essentially the NAACP for Latinos. Pretty fun job, moderately rewarding. I’ll either be at Georgetown or NYU graduate school in the fall… I just accepted a legal assistant position with Robert E. Ward and Associates in Bethesda, MD. I will be working there for the next year and plan to apply to and enroll in law school (probably back at the University of Alabama) in the next couple of years… I’ll be doing Teach for America next year. I’ll be teaching middle school or high school English in Chicago… I plan to return home to New Jersey. I hope to obtain an editorial assistant position at a New York City publishing house in the fall… After graduation I will be going to OCS (Officer Candidate School) to attempt to become an Officer in the U.S. Marine Corps. After that I will see where the wind takes me. I plan on pursuing some form of graduate education afterwards… Teach For America, English teacher, middle school, Prince George’s County, two year service… I will be attending University of Manchester in the United Kingdom to earn my masters in medieval and early modern English. It’s a one year program and I hope to start working on my doctorate after… I am going to NYU’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies to get an M.S. in Publishing next year.
Kate Golcheski offers this anecdote as encouragement: I went to interview for this job the day that I left GW in December. The first thing my interviewer said was, “We were interested in speaking with you because you were an English major and you have creative writing experience.”
Lastly, Jessica Zimmerman, a senior who has been in a couple of my creative writing classes wrote this poem, which I wanted to share because I think it perfectly captures many of our current attitudes.
Like Every English Major, I’m Moving to New York
to write, to read, to edit, to split
ramen noodle rent with undergrad
boyfriend gone law school, his
starting salary a carrot dangling.
I’ll go on job interviews in the
suit still on my credit card bill.
I’ll get the job and fetch coffee
and copies for suits paid in full,
come home to one room, sleep
restless as the lamp’s still burning
over Matt’s desk. He pours over
cases, life choices, but we still
can’t get enough of each other,
get a puppy, test it out, go on
walks in Central Park, Union
Square, because that’s what you
do when you’re twenty four in
New York and still falling in love.
Go to parties in SoHo with a
designer friend, go to soirées
in cocktail dresses with a banker
friend, stop getting coffee and start
dictating orders: grande skim latte,
extra shot, extra hot because I can
Twenty years from now, maybe,
over kobe beef and cabernet, I’ll
miss how romantic hunger was,
how we filled up on each other.
