Why I Choose To Write

I was recently asked to discuss why I choose to write. This was my answer.

I was admitted into the architecture program at Cal Poly Pomona, one of the best architecture schools around, and switched my major to English with a minor in Journalism after the first year. My family, friends, and classmates thought that I was insane for switching out into such a “doomed” life path, but I wasn’t worried—that much.

I knew that if I chose a path that I was passionate about, and that I could look back on when I’m lying in my death bed, and think that with this choice, I’ve contributed to a life that I am happy with, then it wasn’t insane.

I have a passion for story telling in every medium of writing. I enjoy the conversations and information that comes out of something that I have helped to create, and I believe I can do all of this and much more through writing.

Within the first moments of me, as an architecture student, accepting an offer from the editor-in-chief of The Poly Post, at the time, to become a freelance writer, I knew I had fallen in love with something that was incredibly exciting and challenging.

I find it fascinating that the words on the page are filled so much with amazing power that they stop those that are reading them from whatever they were doing before, and they keep their attention long enough to finish listening to what the author has to say.

Because of this, I feel as though these writers with their leaky pens and worn keyboards hold some sort of major influence on the world—although secretly of course, because everyone is too busy wrapped up in the story on the page to remember that the author was the one who created the thoughts and questions floating in their heads. This is the reason why I think I would love to continue to pursue journalism in graduate school, if I chose to continue my education, and why I have included it in my undergraduate education already.

I’m incredibly interested in the subjects of Journalism and communications, and I can’t find myself in a career involved with anything else. I’ve always been fascinated by conversation and the way we humans converse and interact with one another. The most intriguing courses that I have ever taken have always included time for discussion. My life today consists of learning and expanding my thoughts through the medium of various forms of communication, and I intend, for now, to continue this trend at the graduate level. I want to be a part of the age of information and help spread information and start discussions by way of communication.

I enjoy everything about mass communications and new media. Our lives practically revolve around the ability to demand new and interesting content from various types of media at any time possible. The fact that we’re on the cusp of a new era evolving into a more technological future sounds fantastic, adventurous, and magnificent all of the same time. We can now bring the world together and connect people, who may have not been able to otherwise because of distance, together and share new thoughts, information, and ideas with one another.

I find it amazing how, within seconds of some major news event, anyone with complete access to the internet can be updated with the knowledge of that event’s existence through Facebook, Twitter, videos uploaded from iPhones to YouTube and news stories popping up on blogging platforms and prominent news sites. Information comes swiftly speeding all over the globe to reach those who thirst for information and I love being a part of the process. I’ve spent about three years in the field of communication editing stories, writing articles and publishing and distributing content through new and social media. I just keep getting drawn back into the world of daily discussion, and I honestly feel that pursuing something that will allow me to continue conversing through the medium of writing is what I’m supposed to be doing.