Every Ending is a New Beginning

I entered my first graduate writing course unsure of many things. It seemed like I needed to figure out who I was and who I need to be as quickly as possible, but it took me down a completely different path.

At the time, I was only looking at the future. I thought I needed to figure out where I see myself in 10 years, but I soon realized no one really knows when they are just out of college. Professor Kalm wanted us to challenge ourselves. He wanted us to create arguments and question the norm. Through these exercises I found my voice a little at a time. I learned that it is not the unknown future that I need to be looking at, but to look in the past. The past is what defines you. The choices you’ve made in the past affect the choices you make today and will guide the choices you make in the future. This was the greatest lesson of all.

I see many accomplishments in the work I have created for my writing class. First, I began and maintained a blog. I have tried this in the past and it never seemed to keep my interest, but I love the topic I blog about and wish to keep it going after this class has completed. I have become more confident in my writing and the opinions I share. As Professor Kalm discussed in his lectures, your audience will find you, you just need to put your voice out there.

This leads me into another great accomplishment, my Twitter account. I have tweeted all about my blog and different recipes I find and an audience has found me which I am esthetic about. I have received a handful of followers interested and commenting on the recipes I posted. This gives me complete confidence that your audience will find you as long as you put your voice out there.

The last accomplishment I would like to highlight is my online presence. With an already established Twitter and blog account I also decided to redesign my Facebook page and create a LinkedIn account. All of these are now professional references that employers can look at to find more information on me as well as obtain my resume on my LinkedIn page. This will come in great help when I begin my job search in a year. With all of these social media tools combined, I believe I have a strong presence on the internet. When my name is searched on Google, you will immediately find direct links to all of these pages at the top of the search results.

Following the completion of this course I plan to maintain my blog, Twitter, and LinkedIn pages. I will continue to share the wonderful cuisine Europe has to offer through my blog and Twitter. I will continue to find connections on LinkedIn and hopefully gain a few recommendations in the process. I will aim most of my time to my Twitter account. I have seen the highest results here and do not limit my tweets to European food, but offer all types of delicious foods. If change were to occur in my blog it would be to not limit the topic to European cuisine but to discuss a variety of dishes that have a history and meaning behind them.

I have learned a great deal in this writing course, more than I have ever expected. I learned how to write and to be confident through my words when reaching others. I learned how to filter my ideas and edit them down to truly important and specific thoughts. Most importantly, I learned how to define my voice. Unlike many of my classmates I have not begun my career to base my interests and discussion topics off of. I had to look at where I have been and the decisions I have made in the past to help create the person I am today. I am still a long way from a straight path to the future but I am no longer rushing into who I am supposed to be but living as who I am today. I plan to continue writing, even if it is as simple as a journal and I believe it help take me to where I want to be.