By Shelbi Tedeschi
On What's Next: Life After IWU
My experience after graduating from IWU has not been what I expected, to say the least. In the two years after graduating, I held a handful of positions, including magazine intern, part-time editor for a tourism publication, barista, and receptionist at a driving school. If I’m honest, I pictured myself landing an entry-level editing job right out of college at a publishing company or magazine, working alongside people who loved the written word as much as I did. I found myself frustrated and discouraged when I applied for job after job, rarely hearing back after the first interview, if I was lucky enough to get in the door. When I did interview, I showed up early, dressed in a professional outfit and a nervously hopeful smile. I could see what the people who interviewed me were thinking: she’s young; she’s inexperienced; our clients won’t take her seriously.
I don’t share this to discourage any graduating seniors, or any English or Writing majors like myself. Being a part of the Department of Modern Language and Literature was the best part of my college experience. I loved interacting with professors when I worked the front desk in the office. I loved hearing my classmates share their essays and poems in Dr. Karnehm-Esh’s classes. I loved events in the department, like Caesura readings and the Senior Dinner. But, I do share my experience to relate to students who might be in the same position to seriously consider what might be next for them, and how they can get a leg up. I had experience on my resume, including multiple (unpaid) editing positions, and more than one internship. And still, there was so much I lacked that employers wanted from me—two to five years of experience. Social media management experience. Design skills. Photography skills. The list was endless, and I felt stuck. Spring came in 2019, as it always does, in Cleveland where I lived. I watched the trees begin to blossom and warm rain soak the sidewalks while I scrolled through social media posts and saw announcement after announcement of my peers deciding on graduate schools. Within two months, I took the GRE and decided on Ball State University for the fall. I missed Indiana, and I missed my family, but more than that, I missed being in a community of writers and learners. The decision was so last minute, and I couldn’t have imagined that things would fall into place as quickly as they did. But, I knew I was unhappy and felt stagnant where I currently was. I had to make a choice: to stay put, or to move forward.
As I write this, I sit at a hand-me-down kitchen table in a university-owned apartment, with a cinderblock wall to my left, and what I can only describe as a miniature stove to my right. It’s not glamorous by any means, but this is where I do all of my schoolwork now, since we’ve been quarantined for the remainder of the semester (but that’s another story for another time). I’m almost finished with the first of two years of my master’s degree in English, with a concentration in Creative Writing. Even though I’m less than a year into the program, I know I’m a much better writer than when I started. I have a confidence I didn’t have before. I have relationships with my professors again, much like I did at IWU, and I’m surrounded by people who love learning and writing, just like I do.
My assistantship involves teaching a section of English Composition. I enjoy teaching more than I thought I would, and I’m thinking of maybe pursuing it further after I graduate. I want to be clear that coming to grad school doesn’t mean I have it all figured out. What I want to do next changes almost daily, and with a program that only lasts two years, I feel a pressure to know what my next move is already, though I’ve barely just begun. I don’t know if there’s more school in my future, or if there’s even the “right” answer about what I’m supposed to be doing that I’ve spent so much time searching for.
At the beginning of March, before Coronavirus had begun to seriously affect most of our lives, I flew to San Antonio for the Association of Writers & Writing Programs conference. There, I had lunch and visited the alamo with Dr. Karnehm-Esh and Dr. Esh. I sat next to Dr. Allison at a reading, and we caught up between essays. I worked the River Teeth booth and told passersby about the joys and opportunities that Ball State and our newly acquired literary journal have to offer. I listened as strangers gushed about my new creative writing professors, and I earnestly agreed with them.
All of this to say, graduate school has opened so many new doors for me that I had closed myself off to before, and a year ago, I could not have imagined myself as fulfilled as I feel, here and now. I don’t know what’s next, and if you’re a senior in college reading this, you may not either. My point is not to tell you not to have dreams of what career you can get with a bachelor’s degree or to tell you to go to Ball State or even to grad school. More simply, I’d urge you not to close yourself off to any paths—it’s much too early for that—and to be encouraged if you don’t find yourself exactly where you’d wished right after graduation. If I could tell the version of myself steaming whole milk with extra foam for strangers three days a week and editing for a dying publication with a micro-managing boss the other two, I’d say that things better than you imagined are still to come.
Shelbi Tedeschi (Favre) graduated from Indiana Wesleyan University with an English and Writing double major. She's now a graduate student in the Creative Writing program at Ball State University. She writes creative nonfiction and hopes to publish a memoir one day.