How to Finish a Professional Writing Degree: the Portfolio
As a Professional Writing major, my senior portfolio is a compilation of four years of writing. It spans what we wrote in our baby sophomore creative writing classes all the way to our senior literary research papers we constructed for what seemed like doctorate-level literature classes. It is filled with heartwarming nonfiction pieces, heartbreaking personal essays, and heart-stopping adventure fiction stories. But more than just 80 or so pages of stories, it is filled with the very heart of each Professional Writing student.
We get to share the words of our hearts with our family and friends when we present our Portfolio Reading. Here, in front of the mint green curtains in the dimly-lit Multimedia Auditorium, we share a few pieces which mean the most to us (or at least seemed to get a decent grade).
And once all the clapping is done, we hug and laugh and smile (and maybe cry) in the receiving line and then go home with a professionally-bound book to remember college by and to use in impressing my future employers. At least that’s what they tell us. I’m not sure I’ll ever crack open the cover of my portfolio again, except maybe to show my children what I wrote during college, but even then I’m sure I’ll laugh in remembrance.
I’m sure I’ll laugh at the funny memories of those writing classes and at the good times I spent discussing literature with my teachers, but hopefully I’ll laugh more because my writing has improved so much since college. Hopefully I’ll look back and see something similar to babyish scribbles, because that will mean that my degree took me places where I learned to grow.
And that’s the point of finishing strong.
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