Imagine you have graduated from Temple University. You are preparing to attend your 10-year reunion, and the alumni office has asked you to write a one-page essay about your personal and professional accomplishments since graduation. What would yours say? OR Please tell us more about yourself. Relate one or more experiences or circumstances that have contributed to your personal and/or academic development. If you have been out of school for a year or longer, please discuss your activities during that period of time.
I’ve always taken the unexpected roads in life, surprising even myself with what I plan to do and what I accomplish. I guess I always knew my imagination would take me places. I mean, I never actually got to be a Powerpuff Girl, but it was definitely my first career goal when I was younger. I think I’ve still stuck with that general them though - wanting to help people and save the world, and also entertain people and make them happy. When I decided that I wanted to go into advertising, and dabble in writing and journalism, I realized it was a choice that I was meant to take.
My interests in high school really started me on my path - my and my fellow outcasts in my school’s Anime Club helped me realize that I wanted to help spread the word about the underdogs of the world, and did so through graphic design and advertising. The drama that me and my friends faced in everyday life made me want to help people who usually suffered in silence, either because no one would listen or they just couldn’t get the help they needed. Working at The Mash, a teen newspaper, I enjoyed presenting unusual article ideas, like the popularity of techno music and how cartoons today aren’t as entertaining or educational as the ones of yesteryear, but I was also eager to write about news that impacted teenagers like cyber-bullying and self-esteem issues. Even though I was used to writing in my blog about the difficulties I faced in my life, such as dealing with two autistic brothers and my own self-esteem issues, I felt even better when I got to help others in unique ways.
After receiving my B.A. in advertising, I was able to create new things and promote businesses and organizations that might otherwise go unnoticed. I’ve felt invisible and unimportant most of my life, but when I advertise, she feel like I’m giving a bigger voice to people like me, and showing people what I can create. I worked at an advertising firm for a while before deciding that I still wanted to take on the entrepreneurial ideas I had set aside after high school.
I had always wanted to work for Seventeen Magazine. They were different from other magazines that some teens read because they addressed the average teen and the not-so-average teen. Every issue did a story on a girl who had experienced a life-changing and self-empowering moment, offered advice for major problems teens faced like self-esteem issues and relationships, recommended healthy life choices, and gave tips on how a girl can feel good about herself just by changing her wardrobe a little bit. Seventeen Magazine featured the type of girls you saw walking in your school halls, not walking down the runway, yet they still appealed to every type of girl out there. I’m proud that I’ve climbed up from working on copywriting, designing, and advertising to becoming the magazine’s creative director.
Eventually, I decided that I wanted to create my own magazine, about nothing in particular. I recruited my best friends and we really just had fun setting it up, writing article about news that drifted to us, promoting local businesses and organizations, publishing our literary works such as short stories and poetry or pictures of our artwork, and basically filling the pages with whatever we pleased. When we noticed some people were actually paying attention to what we wrote, we decided to refine the magazine, calling it The Underdog. We highlighted the stories that most people didn’t read about, researching interesting topics that no one else thought of writing about, and addressing problems - widely known or not - that needed more support to solve them. We employed more workers, promoted the magazine, and now, it is still growing more and more famous.
The world of journalism, however, isn’t always my favorite place to be. I was, of course, an advertising major. I prefer creativity and color, detail and words. In my free time, I continue writing stories, poems, and whatever flows from my brain to my blog. I love writing, but I hardly ever share what I write with people I know. My friends are still bugging me to write a book. Ever since I was in seventh grade, I’ve come up with novel idea after novel idea. I first started really writing in seventh grade, starting a story about my life and my thoughts called “Apathetic Girl”, when my English teacher scolded me for my apathy in her class. My mother insists that I write a book about my journey with my Autistic brothers, but I keep telling her there isn’t enough paper in the world to tell that story. Sometimes I have fictional story ideas that I think are so good, they deserve to be a novel. So maybe I will actually try to get my stories published. I do, after all, still have a lot to say.
I still like to do graphic design, sometimes sharing my brand ideas with companies and earning some extra money, but mostly designing for artistic purposes rather than profit.
It’s always appealed to my inner romantic and outer story writer to want to become a wedding planner. I couldn’t do it full-time, but I might consider it part-time, even though it was entirely difficult and time consuming. Setting up weddings in a way that makes a magical feeling engulf couples and make their day even more special, adding a happy moment onto their life story, would fill me with an even bigger sense of pride and joy.
Eventually, the stress of wedding planning and dealing with couples would get to be a little too much for me, so I’d probably set aside my part-time business and decide to focus on the magazine.
Right now, journalism, graphic design, and social networking interest me in the way of publicity, but I’m always open to creative new challenges.
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