When I got accepted into MSU, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. All I knew was that I wanted to do something that involved writing and reading. My older sister, who was going to be a senior at MSU when I would be a freshman, told me about the major of Professional Writing. This major sounded interesting so I went with it and by the fall of 2017, it was my official major. Whenever anyone asked what I am studying at MSU and I would say Professional Writing the question of “oh cool…what’s that?” always would come up. At first, I didn’t know how to respond, but after learning more about the major I was able to give a better answer. After taking the necessary classes, I started to understand more of what Professional Writing was all about
I learned about all the different tracks In WRA 202 (intro to PW). The four major tracks that one could go on are; editing and publishing, technical writing, writing in the public interest, and nature and environmental writing. I was most interested in the editing and publishing track and decided to take that route. The classes I have taken have opened my eyes on what the editing and publishing industry is all about and the work it takes to be/ become an editor. One of my favorite classes was WRA 370: Grammar in Editing and Publishing. In this class, we did many projects involving a type of editing in some form of work. My favorite project was the proofreading assignment, in this project I was given the manuscript and real copies of the book “Lady Susan” by Jane Austen. With both copies of the work, I had to make proofreading marks on the manuscript to make it the form of the final copy along with following a style sheet. This was the first project we were given and it really opened my eyes to what the editing and publishing industry was all about and it wasn’t just about editing in one way, but taught me that there are many ways to edit different types of work.
Learning more about the different parts of this major, my answer to the question of what Professional Writing became more direct. To me Professional Writing is writing for a company whether it is technical; helping to do write-ups for lawyers, medical works, etc. for an editor or publisher in different forms of writing; novels, text books, newspapers, magazines, etc. or helping do write-ups toward the public interest/ environment. PW is a well-rounded major that could allow anyone in it to do a professional path with writing in any form. Most professional writers also end up doing a lot of media work for the specific company they work with and help keep this about the company up to date.
Within Professional Writing I have also wanted to do some creative writing so at the end of my sophomore year (2019) I decided to add another major, English- with a focus on creative writing. This major is more straight forward in that the English- creative writing major has other different paths one could take in how they would like to move forward; they could do poetry, novels, plays, films, etc. The interest in this major came after I took a creative writing, ENG 226, class my freshman year. In this class, we did all different forms of writing; poetry, narrative, short story, scripts, etc. my favorite assignment was the poetry section when we got to write a poem in any form we would like. I chose to write a poem about my grandpa who had passed away. This was a struggle but it challenged me to dig deeper and find a good way to represent my grandpa in simple words.
Another assignment that was more challenging to me was the short story. Poetry has come easy to me but writing longer stories has always been a bit more difficult. This assignment was a bit more challenging because I had to make sure the format was correct, when to put dialogue in and had to focus more on punctuation when writing the story. I liked this challenge, it allowed me to go deeper in my writing and made me a better writer.
After that class I decided I wanted to do more with poetry and took a class my sophomore year, ENG 129, that focused on reading poetry which opened my eyes to more of what poetry really is. This lead me to choose my focus within the English major to be poetry. With the focus of poetry, I will learn how to write, read, and interpret it. Along with the path I chose in creative writing, I also have to do some other types of writing like short stories and play scripts. There are also some classes that focus more of the English aspect and gives more reading topics. For instance, this summer on my study abroad, I will be taking studies in modern/contemporary literature to help further me along in the English major.
I am excited to move along in the next two years that I have left at MSU, and to learn more about the majors I have chosen to take on.