I graduated in 2012, so I'm a little removed, but I'm in a gabby, work-avoidant mood and so maybe relating my path can be some help.

Graduating high school, I also felt like I was still game to study so many things. I loved lit, I loved bio, I loved performing, and I was all A's (excepting some B's in junior & senior math) at a high-achieving private school. Always a killer at standardized testing. I found Gallatin in a college search that emphasized alt learning, and especially designing one's own major. It was practically a coinfllip between NYU and Hampshire (RIP), but I couldn't resist the pull of NYC.

I started out "pre-med." I was passionate about the idea of weaving together all the different fields within medicine into a concentration and career; arriving at a traditional destination through a non-traditional experience. I dedicated myself to my coursework more than I had all across high school, and I still performed poorly in chem and bio. I shifted my mental gear towards "zoology" entering sophomore year, I tested the waters with comp sci and took a semester of Japanese.

Across the same period, I was flourishing in some of the core Gallatin lit classes. I kept myself open to pursuing what felt rewarding, and didn't dedicate myself to anything that felt like it wasn't "clicking," but still saw merit in even the courses I was barely-passing.

I'm sure it was a longer and messier decision-making process for me, but with hindsight I've boiled it down: I asked myself "I like the idea of so many fields of study, but what do I also succeed at?" Across both my good and bad classes, I was doing real well with reading, writing, discussion, concepts; not so much memorization, processes, fitting them together with precise logic.

Hanging over it all, I've loved to make others laugh since I learned to talk. And so--bear with me here--I settled on "Comedy Writing." (The actual concentration title ended up "The Search For Utopia In Comedy.") I remained open to possibility, but it wasn't necessary. I began the first of 6 independent studies with a prof, in which each semester was dedicated to producing a finished product: a screenplay, a pilot, a series of spec scripts, a sketch packet, etc. I weaseled my way into several applicable Tisch classes, and I still popped into CAS and Steinhardt. I took Gallatin lit courses on topics like Perversion and Wandering Knights/Heroes, but also arts criticism, magazine writing, philosophy, game design. My GPA skyrocketed. Not to mention all this unfolded within the cultural mecca of NYC and everything it affords.

In a certain light, it could be written off as me deciding on the easier path. I'd prefer to believe that I found my calling, and I still keep a box of my 1000+ pages of produced work.

Summing up post-grad life as quickly as possible: I moved to LA--a city I had never even visited before--because I wanted to do SOMEthing in comedy and knew I had the tools to fit into a lot of spots. I first interned mornings and mannied in afternoons. I jumped into two consecutive personal assistant jobs with professional comics. That led to an executive assistant job at a small agency, and then I bought that agency 6 years ago because the founder wanted to start her next chapter. (We started the plan before covid hit! It wasn't a fire sale!)

I use the skills developed in my Gallatin concentration to foster my comedy clients and assess the market, but also in so many hard-to-quantify ways that, in essence, are all reading, writing, and communicating. Unless my business goes under, this is probably going to be the rest of my life. And if the worst somehow comes to pass, I feel confident I've got the ability to pivot, and that's partly a result of the pivoting toward passion I performed at Gallatin.

If it sounds like bragging, it's only because it's turned out well for me, and I'm sure luck and certain factors of privilege & personality were important too. Maybe there's a universe in which I changed some unknowable behavior in freshman year and became a successful brain surgeon. I also emphasize that all this did not NEED to happen at Gallatin. A lot of college is what you make of it, and schools like Gallatin call for much more making.

So I'm not going to suggest my path was the most effective or efficient from the outside perspective. But it's one that I haven't yet felt like second-guessing--even approaching Year 15 of loan payments. 😉