Hi, I'm Jordan, and I'm a senior here at Mount Holyoke.
"Do you want fries with that?"
That was the first question my brother asked me
when I told him that I was declaring my English major.
He repeated that question to me later when
I told him I was declaring a Classics minor.
And he's a very protective and supportive older brother,
and I really appreciate that from him,
and I knew that what he was trying to get at
was the question of what was I going to do with my major.
Or perhaps what was my major going to do for me.
Now, when he asked me that when I was a freshman,
I didn't have an answer.
Didn't really have an answer as a sophomore, either.
And it's only now that I'm really starting
to answer that question.
So, how I first got at that was thinking of what skills I had,
or I was learning as an English major
that I could transfer to another career, how I could
monetize that and make money.
Because that's what matters, right?
And so I started to think of my writing skills,
and I write a lot of essays for English,
and I have what I like to call strong writing skills,
and with that, communication and argumentation.
And in the short term, I took that and I
got a job at the Speaking, Arguing, and Writing Center
here on campus, and I've been working as a SAW mentor
since my sophomore year.
And that's been wonderful, and I've
continued to improve on those skills
and learn a lot from those connections that I've made.
But still, I didn't really know what to do with them.
I didn't have an answer of how I was
going to apply that elsewhere.
And I kind of came up with that answer in a really odd way.
So, side note, I have a passion for horses.
I've been riding since I was four years old
and taking lessons in the summer.
I was on multiple riding teams here on campus.
They've always been a great, wonderful part
of my life, something that I've always enjoyed.
I go to the barn to de-stress.
It's been a wonderful, wonderful portion of my life.
And last summer, summer before last,
I discovered an internship at the American Quarter Horse
Association in Amarillo, Texas.
And the American Quarter Horse Association
is a breed registry and membership organization.
They run huge shows, and they also
register all the horses of that breed.
I was their online communications and publications
intern, and there I learned about social media,
social media marketing.
I did blogging and also some more traditional forms
of journalism.
I found that field that I was interested in.
I was working on their on Facebook page for their youth
association, their Instagram.
I was in charge of the America's Horse
daily blog for about four months, and it was amazing.
And I started to ask the question
of what technology does for communication,
and how our advances today have changed how we communicate
and what ideas we can get across, how fast, when, how,
why.
And so I was excited, because I found what I wanted to do.
And so junior year comes around, and in the spring
I'm trying to figure out what internship I'm
going to get that's going to top that,
because I thought that was the best experience out there.
And I came up with three goals.
I one, wanted to complete my degree
in December of this year.
I wanted to create my own media marketing
firm after I completed my degree in the spring,
and I wanted to apply that firm in the equine industry.
I wanted to stay, keep my two passions combined.
And to do that, I approached my horse trainer,
she's a local horse trainer, and I've worked with her before,
been riding with her for a couple of years,
and I asked if she wanted a summer intern.
And she said yes, and so my job was
to ride with her during the day.
I would help her in the barn and get to ride and improve
my riding skills, but then I was to build her a website
and improve her social media.
And it was a great change from what
I had done the summer before, because this was
more independent and on my own.
And so my summer experience was amazing.
It was everything I expected it to be.
I worked at the barn every day, Saturday, even Sunday included.
I was at horse shows.
I groomed, tacked, rode horses.
I cleaned the barn, I organized the barn,
I spent hours scrubbing down the aisles,
and I loved every second of it.
And I also worked at night on my own
on the website, the social media accounts,
doing those things when I was very tired from being
at the barn all day.
But again, it was something that I really, really enjoyed.
It was incredibly rewarding.
I saw huge improvements in my writing within the first week.
It's amazing what doing something every day can mean.
And I, as I said, I enjoyed what I was doing.
I liked being able to see the end of the summer,
that I had a finished project.
I can go back and look and say, this is what I've done.
And to really see the accumulation
of an entire summer's worth of work.
But still something was missing.
And it kind of took me a while to pin down what was missing,
and I realized a lot of that is while I enjoyed
working independently, I didn't really
enjoy working entirely on my own in a room by myself.
The work I was doing wasn't immediately
beneficial to anyone else.
The website didn't go live until the end of the summer.
It was helping no one, in my opinion.
And the work wasn't as meaningful as some of the work
that I'm used to doing, particularly in the SAW Center,
and working one-on-one with students
to improve their writing.
And in that same way, the work kind of felt like busy work.
Or not as intellectually challenging
as some of my academic course that I've really
come to enjoy and love.
But I still don't have any regrets.
It was a great summer.
But I know now that I need something different out
of an experience.
I need something different for what I want to do with my life.
I want to keep horses in my life,
but they need to stay a hobby.
By the end of the summer, I was starting
to dread going to the barn, and that's not something
that I wanted to deal with.
The reason that I love horses is because they are a hobby,
and because they are a stress free passion for me.
And it was a really great experience to know that.
I also learned that, while I liked these questions of what
technology does for communication, what
we can do with social media, it's
not really where I want to be.
And again, that gets back to those questions
of working mostly on my own and not that personal connection.
So my plans has certainly changed since last spring
and this summer.
I had three goals going into this summer,
and only one of them is still viable.
I submitted my application for graduation like last week,
and it was terrifying to put that I
am going to be completing my degree in December,
which is like not long enough.
But it's really, really exciting,
and I'm really glad that I met that goal.
And instead, now I'm looking to apply
to grad schools in Europe, mostly in the UK or Ireland.
I want to get my MA in English.
I love the work that I do here on campus in my literature
courses, and it's something that I want to continue.
And then, after that I hope to come back to the states,
perhaps with my PhD, and be able to inspire students the way
that professions here inspired me.
Or I could work in a writing center,
because that's work that I also really enjoy.
Working one-on-one, creating those personal connections,
and really seeing my work mean something.
So I know that whatever I end up doing,
it's going to have those personal passions
and be in an environment that's intellectually
challenging and inspiring.
So my final words.
I tailor-made an internship for myself,
and while it didn't quite turn out the way I expected,
it did meet all of my expectations,
and in rather surprising ways.
I learned more about myself than I
ever though I was going to learn,
and learned a lot less about social media or even horses.
And so with that, I have a couple pieces of advice.
Let your internship or your experience,
whatever it might be, surprise you.
Don't control it so much.
And be open to change.
There's always another way to go.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]