Two months after graduating from Northwestern University with a Master of Science degree in Journalism, and four months into my role as Content Strategist at Capsim, the opportunity to become an author arose.
“Why don’t you write about creating your own experience using the CapsimInbox Authoring Platform?” Evan Meyer, Capsim’s Director of Marketing asked me.
I’ve always wanted to write a book and become a novelist. But, how can I come up with a story that hasn’t already been told?
And what makes a recent graduate just starting her first job the right person to create a CapsimInbox Microsimulation on the Authoring Platform? I’m far from a novelist.
My love of reading was born in second grade, during the flu. My mom tended to me with homemade chicken noodle soup. But above all, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series cured me of my ailments.
Despite my lack of qualifications on paper, I did have previous “expertise.” No, not a Ph.D. But a few years of competing as a Division I athlete qualified as my industry of expertise. Sports, and my love of writing about them.
A stampede of doubts surfaced. I haven’t written in that context before. I’m a recently graduated student, and not a teacher. Unlike the characters in the Harry Potter Saga, I can’t wave a wand and cast a spell into thin air.
And then, I thought about what many of my former college teammates were going through. Final senior seasons, cut abruptly, without a last race or competition.
I thought even further back, to my senior year of high school. When my palms sweated profusely but my face was beaming as I signed the National Letter of Intent and committed myself to run at DePaul University for the next four years. A memory many high school seniors weren’t able to experience because of the pandemic.