When I finally realized how I wanted to spend my career, I had already been sending out applications for two months. I sat in front of my laptop and detailed my strategy to the Cornell professor on the other end.
And as we spoke, I saw for the first time that I’d drawn a winding line with switchbacks and hairpin curves that led from my current post-undergrad life to the profession I had always wanted.
But I was taken aback when the professor responded quickly, with the directness of someone who’d had this conversation before. “If you want to be a writer,” she said, “you should try to be a writer.”
I left the conversation with tips and ideas for how to write professionally. More importantly, I came away with a renewed clarity about my goals.
Sheryl Sinkow/for the Society for the Humanities
Arriving at the Society for the Humanities' 60th anniversary event in the A. D. White House, Maddie Reynolds, PhD ’21, former Humanities Scholars Program Postdoctoral Associate, views photos of Society activities
The event celebrates the arrival of a new sculpture in the atrium: a portrait of the Greek statesman Demosthenes, dressed in the cloak of an Athenian citizen and holding a papyrus scroll.