A few people have asked me what it’s like as a graduating college senior on the cusp of change. Part of me wants to take this post in the direction of reflection–where I’ve been and what I’ve experienced and how I’ve grown. But so much of my mind is focused on the future–both immediate and distant. I am preoccupied with finishing my history paper, with editing my final short film, with Georgetown Day and senior week and leaving everyone who has made my four years of Georgetown a community. Leaving everything behind and starting over, yet again.
My transition has an interlude–I will spend time in Iowa gaining funds and work experience. This interlude provides its fair share of opportunities -I have written and workshopped in class the first chapter of what I hope to make a series of novels. I also have a camera, a youtube channel, some creative friends, and a film professor that has explicitly told me to “Keep filming.” While every senior around me is stressed out about finding a job or an apartment, I am casually and most contently experiencing my last moments of college. Occasionally, end-of-the-year coursework threatens to get in the way of that, but as I walk through the campus I look around and appreciate how little time I have left here. How fast time flies.
I found my dream last summer, or rather I started listening to it. I want to go make stories in Hollywood. I have heard how difficult and disheartening the path can be at every point in its twists and bends in finding success in a very competitive and talent-rich environment. The ego is constantly battered. You assume knowledge of nothing, but you offer your opinion at the exact right moment to gain an edge. It’s about knowing people, but knowing the right people. It’s about being hungry and humble, every day, showing up with enthusiasm and competence.
Luckily, through Georgetown’s Entertainment and Media Alliance (GEMA) externship program, I have met a number of friendly faces in Hollywood, spanning a breadth of career choices. Once you have an in, you must impress everyone you work with. If that happens, the work will keep coming. I find it amazing how many different career paths there are in such a seemingly focused industry. It really attracts all types. I also have a few friendly faces in the Los Angeles area that are willing to help me along as I figure out that whole earning enough money to eat/finding an apartment/living in a completely new city thing. For some reason, everyone seems to intuitively understand the importance of networking and helping others.
Following a dream that seems as impossible to achieve as “making” it in Hollywood is something that requires a lot of perseverance, with a good dash of luck. Most potential artists don’t even believe they have the stuff or talent worth paying to see. All I have is the confidence that I’ve slowly built up over the years, due to a variety of experiences in being “out of my element,” and my empathy. I think empathy is key to good storytelling, acting, living. I can only dream of what Meryl Streep is like in real life, but I imagine that she has a lot of empathy–it’s one of those things that makes her seem to glow on screen.
Once in a while, you get a hint or nudge that what you are doing is correct. One of these was an article that my friend Maya shared with me: http://yaledailynews.com/weekend/2011/09/30/even-artichokes-have-doubts/. This beautifully eloquent writer tragically passed away young, but her words still exist in the ether space of the Internet.
“Maybe I’m ignorant and idealistic but I just feel like that can’t possibly be true. I feel like we know that. I feel like we can do something really cool to this world. And I fear — at 23, 24, 25 — we might forget.” …I have to believe, as my dad has told me, that money will follow passion. I have to know that is not a mistake to choose a future that is difficult and winding and insecure. There are already too many people in this world that have to do passionless work. I know how privileged I am to have the faculties and opportunities to follow my passion. I just wish there were more people who did the same.
And it’s so refreshing to have confirmed that I’m not the only one who feels that way.
Staff Solutions says: 
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