Author Archives: brooke

E-Portfolio Reflection

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beyond the english major portfolio

My Eportfolio ↗

My portfolio serves to bridge the gap between the English and business worlds. I strongly feel that the skills I have gained over the course of my academic journey are highly transferable to sales, marketing, and business development professions. The purpose of the liberal arts degree is to create your own unrestricted path, and I feel that I was able to do that at The College. My portfolio aims to mirror this belief. I feel that the website reflects my core values and skills: sales, marketing, and communication which are grounded heavily by my degree in English. Without my English degree, I feel that I would not have the skillset to create tailored messaging for target markets and saturate markets through critical research. 

My artifacts touch up on each of my skillsets highlighted throughout the portfolio: Sales, Marketing and Communication.

Artifact 1 demonstrated my ability to communicate, research, and synthesize artifacts. A typical literary analysis paper shows my ability to think critically and communicate my thoughts effectively.

Artifact 2 experiments with unrestricted formats, styles, and structures to reflect upon my writing process. It uses keywords derived from texts during a writing course. Ultimately, the project aims to synthesize my writing praxis. It demonstrates my ability to think beyond typical writing structures and transform ideas in abstract styles.

Artifact 3 serves to demonstrate my ability to do market research, analysis, and make financial projections. This skillset is crucial in a business field and I felt it would be important to include in my portfolio. This project highlights my ability to write in not just English fields, but in business-oriented disciplines as well.

A “Real-World” Degree

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Who are we without sharing stories? Narratives are the way that we, as human beings, connect with one another. Stories transcend time. As an English major, I have developed a unique lens to see stories in their original contexts while applying their valuable lessons to life today. Working up the ladder of a four-year English degree has helped me cultivate the skills to comprehend all sorts of texts, but my intrinsic desire to discover the stories of humankind propels my education further.

My English story begins, like most inclined to the subject, as a child. I felt things very deeply and putting myself in the shoes of new characters I loved, was a release for me then and still is today. Stories have always had a way of imprinting on me. I absorbed the feelings of the characters I read about.. It got to the point where if I was so enwrapped in a book, I would have dreams and sometimes nightmares about these characters or plots. As Simple as It Seems, a devastating story about a girl with fetal alcohol syndrome, was one I was particularly emotional about as a third grader. My mom and grandmother fostered my skill of reading comprehension as a child and were happy to talk about whatever book I was reading.

Going forward, I excelled in grammar, writing, and reading while I suffered in math. I knew what I loved and stuck with it. When I got to the College of Charleston, the obvious choice would be to pursue an English major. I don’t feel that I really need to defend the viability of my degree because in today’s world, having a deep knowledge of language, how it develops and translates through time, and the ways we use it as a society is irreplaceable. With AI on the rise, being able to communicate your experiences in your voice by writing will be a valuable asset.

 

While at the College of Charleston, I have had the chance to develop my communication skills. One of my favorite examples of my work is a conversation about censorship. During my junior year, our Young Adult Fiction class read the story Fun Home, which is a graphic memoir about a young girl’s journey with identity, family, and trauma. I expected nothing out of this book since this was my first ever graphic novel. But after learning about its complicated history at the College, I was compelled by the story. Back in 2013, Fun Home was assigned as the summer reading book for the incoming freshman class. Due to homosexual depictions, legislators and parents wanted the book banned because they saw these illustrations as pornographic. I decided to write my paper on sex, literature, and censorship and define the way we view pornography and art in this society. The paper was recently nominated to be presented as a poster for CofC’s English Day. I felt it was important to resurface the work and remind students that even our liberal arts college was at the center of censorship and homophobia anxiety.

Turning the paper into a poster was quite challenging. I tried my best to preserve the essence of my arguments while creating a beautiful graphic to capture the attention of English Day attendees. Translating a traditional analysis paper into a poster form was an excellent way to show my adaptability and digital literacy.

Adaptability is undoubtedly a skill that English students hold. We read, process, apply information, and synthesize arguments. In the process of doing this, we adapt our language over and over to communicate our thoughts and feelings most effectively. On another level, English majors are almost forced to adapt to the world because there is no set career path to follow. Although I am not the biggest fan of change, it is something I have learned to accept as an English degree holder. As Richard N. Bolles writes in What Color is. Your Parachute, “Change is not nearly as hard as you think it is. Not changing can be deadly.” (78) I completely agree with this sentiment. As I set out on a career seemingly unrelated to anything of the English world, I remind myself of the value of change and what it offers you in the long run. Although this change into a business-oriented word is a bit daunting, I know that my skills as an English major are complementary and transferable. 

Currently, I have been dedicating multiple hours per week to job hunting and interviewing. The process isn’t easy but I know that I will find a match soon. Richard Bolles says, ”Job hunting is, or should be, a full-time job” (88). For me, this is accurate because of the competitive nature of the sales industry. There is a ton of rejection when it comes to sales. George Anders, author of You Can Do Anything, tells us that “such gritty paths are common” (44). As I mentioned before, liberal arts degree holders are required to persevere in competitive industries because a specialized path doesn’t always exist. 

Alumni Profile: Jared Shapiro

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In the beginning of his book, You Can Do Anything, George Anders tells the story of Josh Sucher, a college graduate who had no idea how to find a job. The chapter is titled, “Explorers,” it follows Josh Sucher, and highlights the values and intricacies of a liberal arts degree. Like most students with a liberal arts degree, Josh Sucher creates his own path, winding and networking from one field to another. From the outside, it may seem like a liberal arts major wanders mindlessly from job to job, testing out one field and then moving onto the next. But in reality, the unrestricted journey of shape-shifting in professional environments is inherently part of the career for those that hold a liberal arts degree, especially English. 

Many English majors define themselves as curious people. In many ways, curiosity is the driving force that propels the English major forward. What unites the liberal arts degree holders is the avant-garde spirit that yearns to learn, experience, and know more. George Anders begs you to “come at your career with a pioneering spirit, and gain the confidence of steadily building up your strengths.” We can all learn from his story about Josh and let curiosity continue to “tug [us] in unpredictable ways.” 

Just as Anders portrays, an English graduate from The College of Charleston, Jared Shapiro, encounters an almost identical experience. When he frist started at College of Charleston, he encountered a sort of identity crisis because he didn’t know what direction his life was headed. He was advised by his older brother to “go the practical route” and study math and business. For three weeks of his sophomore year, Shapiro was a business major and switched out right before the window closed because he just didn’t like it. He knew that he always had a love for English so with the help of awesome professors like Mike Duvall, he was able to seize opportunities through the English department.

With the driving forces of curiosity and a desire to experience more, after graduating from CofC, Shapiro applied to join the Peace Corps. He was determined to utilize both of his majors, English and French. When he was accepted into the Peace Corps, he was sent over to Togo, a Francophone West African nation neighboring Ghana. There, Shapiro taught English to French-speaking students. He enjoyed the incredible experience but knew it woud not last forever.

When Shapiro came back to the United States after one year of working in Togo, he moved to Washington DC. Here, he was an Account Executive at Qorvis, a global advisory firm with based in Middle Eastern countries. The company “navigates the headwinds of a rapidly changing stakeholder economy and anticipates what’s next in the increasingly volatile geopolitical landscape.” 

After Shapiro joined the Peace Corps, his goals were “very short term.” He says that his plan was to “make as much money for as little stress as possible.” This was absolutely not the case for him, unfortunately. As you can probably tell from the Qorvis’ company description, it is certainly a high-stakes professional environment. Shapiro described it as a “pressure cooker.” Quickly, he saw the repercussions of working in high pressure organization doing crisis and global issues work. Although this work was highly demanding of him, he says the “benefits of the pressure cooker sometimes outweigh the stress.” 

Shapiro stayed at Qorvis for two years and three months, working his way up to Account Supervisor. He engaged with federal agencies, congress, and the media. Shapiro says he never saw himself as someone who would work in communications or public relations, but

“my English major was super useful. My ability to synthesize complicated arguments into something that was understandable came naturally after all of the things we did in English.” 

After Qorvis, Shapiro moves to a large pharmaceutical company called Syneos. Interestingly he was recruited through LinkedIn. Shapiro stresses the value of networking through LinkedIn– he was actually recruited by Syneos and quickly got the job there. Here, he starts as an Account Supervisor doing writing and research. After about a year of working there, he took a promotion to an Account Director doing management and overseeing the communications for the company. Shapiro discusses how significant role changes in your career is not something you necessarily learn as an English major, or in college, for that matter.

But, after speaking with him, I am inclined to believe that adaptability and versatility are the defining skills of an English major.

After conversing with him, my biggest takeaway was how he stressed that you learn from the companies you work for, as you go. 

Like Josh Sucher from George Ander’s You Can Do Anything, Jared Shapiro is the ultimate explorer. He has the skillset and abilities to shape-shift and adapt based on the professional environment he is in. Interestingly, he never thought he would end up working in a corporate environment. In many ways he still sees himself as a grungy, gritty, college kid who is still creating his professional career path. 

Beyond the English Major

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Majoring in English feels like finally gaining a certificate in a skillset I have been dealt at birth and developed throughout my entire life. It feels like finally reaching a blackbelt in karate. Reading, writing, and discussing, have been things that I’ve loved to do from the moment I was taught how. My natural inclination towards language has only blossomed with the support of educators who saw this within me–a healthy mix of nurture and nature. Taking these natural abilities and developing them into something “viable” is why we pursue an education in English. Without any direction, I feel it would be easy for an English-oriented mind to get lost in the world of language.

With that being said, English majors are constantly faced with the question, “How can you use that in the real world?” The practicality of an English degree is typically questioned because it is not directly linked to one certain career (besides being an English teacher). We English majors can clearly and confidently list the practical skills we’ve developed throughout our degree—critical thinking likely being at the top of the list. But what does critical thinking actually mean?

US Department of Education Standards for Critical Thinking defines critical thinking by the following standards: clarity, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth & breadth, logic, significance, and fairness.

In Amanda Hiner’s article, “The Viability of the English Major in the Current Economy,” she offers a great interpretation of these standards, “At its core, critical thinking can be defined as metacognitive thinking that is self-conscious, self-reflective, and self-correcting; that relies on standards and criteria of logic; that uses questions to reason things out; and that produces an authentic belief in the validity of the reasoning” (Amanda Hiner, The Viability of the English Major in the Current Economy). I think that this perfectly captures the essence of what the process of critical thinking looks like. These cognitive and metacognitive skills are things that come very naturally to English majors, and most individuals in the Humanities fields.

While reflecting upon the projects that I’ve worked on over the past four years there are a few that stand out. The first project asked that I explore key terms relevant to the theory and practice of my personal writing. I included this image because much of my project described the ingredients that makeup language comprehension. Something I noticed throughout the project was the balance and tension between the “abstract” and the “concrete.”

We live in a world of abstract concepts, thoughts, and ideas. It takes a very refined group of skills and tools to turn abstract concepts into concrete thoughts. Developing these thoughts and communicating them effectively is another layer entirely and ties back into the previous description of critical thinking. It requires you to be clear, accurate, relevant, consider breadth or depth, and to be logical

In another project, that I did in an English Education class through the Education department, we were asked to write about and discuss our teaching philosophy. Capturing the essence of why English is so valuable was natural for me. Explaining how and why I would be a successful teacher allowed me to spend time reflecting on the values of an English education. In the book Sensemaking, Christian Madsbjerg identifies terms like the way Humanities-trained people can: “encounter other worlds,” “imagine other worlds,” “have an acute perception of our own world” and can “recognize patterns to generate insights.” I agree, and these descriptions concisely articulate my six-page teaching philosophy.

Lastly, I believe that projects that all English majors are no stranger to—the literary analysis paper—seemingly useless in the “real world,” are actually the highest form of critical thinking. To be specific, one of my favorite papers to write, a literary Analysis of The Odyssey, required me to closely meet the standards of critical thinking: clarity, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth & breadth, logic, significance, and fairness. Additionally, I had to clearly and effectively communicate abstract ideas and turn them into concrete points.     

As an individual entering the world of sales and business commerce, I know that my English skillset is not only transferrable in the business world but both valuable and viable. I’ve learned that sometimes it’s not about the content I’m working with but the ability to become completely consumed by an interest in learning and sharing what I’ve learned. This ability is essential in a sales profession and is termed “product knowledge.” Learning about new products (for me specifically, medical devices) uses the same passion and skillset as becoming engrossed in a novel, poem, or essay.

Throughout each paper I’ve written, from literary analysis of Pope essays to Young Adult fiction novels, the common thread is clearly articulating my interpretation of the content and persuading others to believe and adopt my perspective.

Delighted by the Present

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Part I

Oh God, Not This Again.

This afternoon I am extremely hungover, hunched backed, scraping my stiff, overflowing, hamper across the kitchen into the laundry room/pantry/shoe dump/ cat bathroom. The early afternoon light is screaming through the closed blinds. I’m fluctuating between searing head pains and nausea and Ella is still asleep. Opening the washing machine, (making sure to check for cats before I dump, of course) my fingers are tangled under the pressure of this really heavy hamper. I think to myself, didn’t I just do this.

God, it never ends.

Doing the laundry is typically a task for my girlfriend, Ella. But since she is sleepy, warm, and mushy in our bed, I remember that the key to a happy relationship is doing the chores. So, I rolled out of bed, banging and knocking into various furniture with this godforsaken hamper, hangover hunched, and headed towards the laundry room. Since reading the Book of Delights, I have really been trying to get into the whole spirit of embracing mundane tasks, but holy God, I hate doing laundry hungover.

Somewhere between the moments of dumping the clothes in the machine resentfully, and balancing the hamper on my knee while reaching for a Tide Pod, I was flung into the realization that a full week had passed. It’s funny how doing the laundry is my marker that seven days, each day different with its own story, have been violently torn from an imaginary book in my mind and I’m watching the pages fly away in the wind as I try to grab for them. Anyway, here I am, cranking these knobs to “regular cycle,” annoyed that I have to choose between “normal” and “regular” cycle (because it seems like there would be absolutely no difference, right?).

Part II Billy Collins “The Present”

My name is Brooke DiMarzio and since I’ve gotten to college, I’ve struggled with living in the present. There are so many times throughout the day when I catch myself thinking about how I should be spending my time. Am I enjoying these years to the fullest? Have I missed out on opportunities because I didn’t join a sorority? Should I be living with my girlfriend in college? Should I see my family more? Why do I have three cats at 21 years old?

I suffer from obsessive compulsive comparing my life to other people’s disorder. I hate how these thoughts sometimes torment the beautiful reality I live. I think it’s fairly common though– to believe the grass is greener on the other side.

In a world where we are microscopically viewing the lives of others through pictures and videos, how could you not?

[music: “patterns” by Z-bone]

“The Present” by Billy Collins

"Much has been said about being in the present.
It’s the place to be, according to the gurus, 
like the latest club on the downtown scene,
but no one, it seems, is able to give you directions.

It doesn’t seem desirable or even possible
to wake up every morning and begin
leaping from one second into the next 
until you fall exhausted back into bed.

Plus, there’d be no past
with so many scenes to savor and regret,
and no future, the place you will die
but not before flying around with a jet pack.

The trouble with the present is 
that its always in a state of vanishing.
Take the second it takes to end 
this sentence with a period—already gone.

What about the moment that exists
between banging your thumb
with a hammer and realizing 
you are in a whole lot of pain? 

What about the one that occurs after you hear the punch line 
but before you get the joke? 
Is that where the wise men want us to live

in that intervening tick, the tiny slot 
that occurs after you have spent hours 
searching downtown for that new club
and just before you give up and head back home?"

Billy Collins

[music: “My Little Brown Book” John Coltrane and Duke Ellington]

Cozy in bed at 9:40 on a Sunday night, lying next to my partner, Ella, this poem literally made me laugh out loud. The first time I read this poem at 14 years old, it went right over my head. Billy Collins was a little too sophisticated for me as a sophomore in high school.

After needing to find a poem to string together some sort of response to this assignment, I fished through my bookshelf and caught Billy Collins’ The Rain in Portugal.

What a delight it was to connect with this work again, seven years later and just a few months away from a degree in English.

In “The Present,” Collins grapples with the idea of living in the moment. In many ways, he challenges the way living in the present is pushed upon us. It seems like Collins wants us to, from time to time, exist in the past and future—live in our memories and fantasies.

I thought it was really clever– the way he freezes us in that moment of time where we experience moments before the uninhibited forces of life. I love how he has these two contrasting physiological responses to demonstrate the present—physical pain and physical laughter. It’s great how he barely uses imagery, but the jarring feeling of hitting your finger with a hammer causes you to flinch while reading.

I get a sense that Collins is struggling with the feeling that life is happening to him. As someone who sometimes feels like I have no real control over my life, I caught onto these suggestions throughout the poem.

Is the speaker of this poem suggesting that life just happens to us, before we can even process what is actually happening?

I think that there is something so humorous about this poem that makes me feel recognized in many ways. Maybe it’s the idea that we do not always have control over the moments that make up our lives and sometimes life just happens to us.

English Major in the Business World

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Throughout my life, I have always been naturally in tune with the world of reading, writing, and thinking. I’m a big feeler and intrinsically identified with the emotive, the introspective, and the passionate.

 My parents— big in the business and finance fields— were NOT happy when I told them I was going to be an English teacher. But I knew that it was something I had to do for myself. After my first shot at student teaching, I quickly came to realize that being a high-school English teacher is A LOT more than just loving literature and wanting to share that passion with your students. I truly couldn’t see myself restrained by academic legislation and confined in a classroom for the majority of my career. Although, reading “Poetry is Hospitable to Strangeness and Surprise,” reignited the spark I have for sharing the joy of reading and writing. I loved when Rosal wrote,

“Not enough is about how everyday people are moved by poems. Truth is, they are hungry for it — especially when it’s written, read, performed and listened to with the whole body. If you saw the audience at Brave New Voices this week or the young folks at Sarah Lawrence College’s Summer High School Writing Conference, you’d see a heightened listening. Educators crave that kind of listening.”

And that is completely true— educators do crave that kind of engagement.

I remember distinctly when my best friend was student teaching in the classroom (English I, a majority Spanish-speaking class) with me and she gave a short lesson on poetry. She had the students (most of whom usually put their heads on the desk and slept throughout the period) rip pages out of old novels and magazines to create blackout poems. It was one of the most amazing things to witness as these incredibly frustrated and uninspired kids turned in not just one but multiple beautiful blackout poems. Getting to read them afterward was so rewarding because the students finally got a chance to express themselves and let out their emotions in a healthy way at school.

Being able to be part of that is something I will remember forever and makes me wish that teachers would receive the salaries that they so incredibly deserve. Reflecting on my time at the high school makes me remember Jasmine Guilllory’s article “Reading Anti-Racist Nonfiction Is a Start. But Don’t Underestimate the Power of Black Fiction.” She says,

“Multiple studies have shown that reading certain types of fiction increases a reader’s empathy for others. Fiction gives you a window into both lives you know and recognize and ones you don’t It helps you to put yourself in the shoes of those characters, even when you have a different perspective when it comes to race, gender, or sexual identity.”

I will never forget the feeling of absolute dread in the room at 8am as the kids staggered in knowing they were going to be forced to read and write about stories that were so out of touch with their realities. It’s just common sense but you can read about the value of black fiction for black children and teens here.

After months of reflecting during my student teaching semester, I discussed heavily with my parents, peers, and advisors, about if I should explore other career paths. The harsh reality is that I would not be able to support myself, let alone a future family as an English teacher. With a lot of back and forth and inner turmoil, I cut my degree in Education short and decided to pick up a Marketing minor. And this has been one of the best decisions of my life so far. With the heavy support of my advisors and professors, I learned there is so much you can do in the business world with an English degree. Effective communication and critical thinking are major skills needed in marketing and sales-oriented careers. I’m experiencing every day the joys of expanding my professional network in the Business School while working towards a career in medical device sales. I feel like I’m in a space where I get the best of both worlds.

Pluto (black), Penny (tabby), and Maple (tortie)