I got a business degree and ended up becoming a writer.

One of the biggest jokes that really isn’t a joke I tell people is that one of the best things that happened to me was that I got a business degree instead of a writing degree.

My writing journey started seriously in high school, when I attended a public specialized high school for writing for free. I told myself I would not major in writing in college, as I thought I needed a more useful degree. Not only did that useful degree push me back into writing, but it taught me how to be seen as a writer, editor, and journalist.

But before I get deep into this blog post, there’s something I would like to emphasize: you are a writer even if you have not published anything major out in the world.

You are a writer even if you did not a creative writing degree. If you tell stories and write, you are a writer. I think it’s immensely gatekeeping to consider someone a writer only if they’ve hit certain qualifications, many of which historically take out people of color and from lower socioeconomic statuses out of the conversation.

Keep writing whenever possible. You are a writer. Don’t forget that.

Sometimes your heart is somewhere else the entire time.

After attending my little arts high school and majoring in writing there, I ended up going down the business route for college. I went to the Fashion Institute of Technology and got degrees in Fashion Business Management and International Trade & Marketing there, which means I was switching my life of works for fabric swatches, calculating profit margins for a clothing business, and dressing up to go to class lest I was going to get judged by all of my peers and professors.

However much I told myself that I was going to be the next girlboss, when that was a trendy concept, I knew my heart wasn’t in it.

I stopped writing my first year of college. My second year I ended up applying for a Brooklyn Poets Fellowship because I was based in New York City, and I didn’t think I was going to get it.

I received the fellowship, and that made me realize the importance of poetry in my life, and I never looked back since. I graduated from college a year early, and between my gap year before graduate school, I landed a professional writing gig writing criticism and articles for MovieWeb. Now, the vast majority of my income comes from my career as a writer.

Focusing on other things taught me about the world, ultimately enriching my writing.

As I mentioned before, I was going to FIT and got two degrees. I also did four minors in American Studies, Asian Studies, English, and Film and Media during my time there.

I had taken a bunch of college level classes and had credit from high school, so I basically had the freedom to do whatever I wanted during my undergraduate years. This was only feasible because I was in business based majors—my credits applied for my core credits, which meant I was able to skip the necessary requirements to take my major related classes.

That said, I took courses for fun like Fashion History in Film, or Politics in the Middle East. I took a wide range of classes across the liberal arts and the humanities, learning about the world and its history.

That ended up really inspiring me to dig deeper into why I was writing, and the traditions in which I was writing myself. I also learned that I was sick about learning of whitewashed perspectives, so I sought out POC and BIPOC voices whenever possible. This taught me to be more innovative in my work, and stop pandering for the people with power (often white).

Marketing yourself is critical for success and finances.

Having worked not only in writing, but also theater, I have learned throughout the years that most creative people are absolutely terrible at marketing themselves.

A lot of the artists I’ve worked with barely do the bare minimum when it comes to promoting themselves, and fail to realize that if they want to be financially successful, they need to learn to treat their art and brand like a business whenever needed. Have a website, update your social media, keep posting on your blog.

I ended up treating my brand like a business, and try to separate myself the business from the art. I create what I want to create, but when it comes to things like self promotion, I even started this blog. This draws in a quarter of a million views in less than six months alone, and has become a source of income for me.

That said, I know I’m really lucky, and that not everyone is able to use their resources or have access to things like I did. I spent a lot of my time during COVID-19, when things were shutdown, trying to find as many free courses on SEO, marketing, and entrepreneurship as possible.

I also have a major disclaimer for this section of the blog post: not everyone wants to make money off of their art. And that’s fine. You don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to do in life.

A lot of people I’ve met do expect to be weirdly famous, which is cool with me, but they lack the bandwidth to do anything with their brand and channels.

I learned how to implement writing into many different careers.

I came from a creative writing background, and thought that most people made their minuscule money off of writing from journalism or selling books into the void after landing an agent and publisher.

But when I started going deep into marketing, writing, and even trade public policy, I saw the different ways in which writing was manifesting in the most mundane careers around me. It landed me scholarships and fellowships from governments and nonprofits, and doors were opening simply because I knew how to write.

Which led me to something new: freelancing. I combined my love for content creation, writing, and storytelling to work with a lot of nonprofit organizations throughout the years, meeting incredible people and allowing others’ stories to shine in a myriad of ways, whether it was through interviewing them, writing about their work, or even through this blog.

I never thought in my wildest dreams I would combine storytelling with business, but it has paved an independent career path for me that has genuinely made me happy. In the end, I wouldn’t trade any of this for the world.

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