As we send off new graduates, we take a look back at some of the old. Meg Palmer, an MA in WRD alumnus and previous Graduate Assistant, was able to fill us in on her current life, work, and writing. She reflected on her time at DePaul and gave some insight on how she has carried that knowledge with her.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has been a quick turn around for you from graduation until now. Give us an update on your work, writing (professional or otherwise), and life in general.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since graduating in June of 2020, I have been working two jobs: one as an Adjunct English Instructor at Johnson and Wales University<\/a> (JWU) and the other working freelance as a Content Strategy Consultant and Content Writer for nonprofit Better Future Forward<\/a> (BFF). At JWU, I teach a variety of first year English classes, including First Year Composition, Public Speaking, and what is, essentially, Intro to Rhetoric. This had been my first time teaching multiple courses and teaching outside of the safe nest of my TAP cohort. (Though we still talk at least once a week. Hi TAP Chat!) It has been such a whirlwind teaching for the first time after graduating and also teaching during a pandemic. But it has been such a wonderful and rewarding experience as well. We\u2019re finishing up our finals week right now, and it 100% has me feeling some type of way. It\u2019s actually been much more emotional than I thought it would be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other side of my writing expertise, at BFF, I write content for social media posts, newsletters, and other various communications channels. After an intensive 2-months spent strategizing with them last summer, I was honored to be able to continue my work putting that plan into action and being a part of their content revitalization efforts. It\u2019s been such an informative experience getting to work with a team of people so deeply committed to changing the landscape of college debt and financing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does your average day at work looks like?\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I feel like very few people in the world have an \u201caverage\u201d day when it comes to work, am I right? Generally though, my days consist of waking up pretty early, answering any student emails I received during non-business hours, and then diving into my work for that day\u2014whatever it may be. Two days a week, it\u2019s going to school (in person!) where I teach all three of my classes back-to-back-to-back. On my \u201cnot-going-to-school\u201d days, I hold office hours, prep classes\/lesson plans, grade work, make social media posts, or do other various projects. I always try to find some time to read in there as well!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Was there a particular class or project you still think about or have learned a lot from that you utilize to this day?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without a doubt the two classes that have stuck with me the most are Lisa Dush\u2019s<\/a> Content Strategy (WRD 532)<\/a> and the Teaching Apprenticeship Program (WRD 551) with Erin Workman<\/a>. The MA in WRD program offers a range of classes in both the teaching and professional\/digital writing concentrations, and I did my best to walk both of those paths and absorb as much as I could.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can honestly say that I apply things I learned from both of those classes almost every single day in my two jobs. Content Strategy let me leave DePaul with a strong portfolio of real writing samples and allowed me to confidently get into Content Strategy work, because I had done it already\u2014and with a community partner. Without this class, I don\u2019t know that I would have felt comfortable to start freelance consulting right after I graduated. The projects we did in that class and the lessons that I learned have been a part of my everyday work with Better Future Forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similarly, TAP gave me hands-on experience in the classroom which was invaluable. TAP provided me the space to really think through\u2026 who I am as an educator and what I believe writing instruction can and should be. Without that foundation, I don\u2019t think I would have trusted my gut when in my \u201cown\u201d classroom. I am a better, stronger, more reflective educator because of my time in TAP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anything about your job that you wish you knew before, even just a mindset or something everyday you did not think about before?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hoo boy! Yes! This past year has been such a learning experience for me, I can\u2019t even begin to list all of the things that I wish I had known last summer. The biggest one though\u2014I think\u2014is about balance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I started teaching, I had no <\/em>boundaries regarding when I was available and when I wasn\u2019t. I felt so much pressure<\/em> to answer every student question immediately. I would roll over in the middle of the night, look at my phone to see what time it was, see that I had an email from a student (sent at like 1 AM), and then would immediately respond\u2014half asleep\u2014at like 3 AM. Which is just unhealthy!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since realizing this, I\u2019ve turned email push notifications OFF, and I don\u2019t look at my email on weekends, or from 5PM until 8AM on week days. It\u2019s been life changing! I know the exclamation point makes that seem hyperbolic or sarcastic, but I really do mean it. It has made such a difference on me and my classroom. And I\u2019ve been really upfront with my students about it too. I feel like that transparency in the classroom is key, and emphasizing work\/life balance as a value I hold has been so great for our classroom community too. I told them on day one this semester, \u201cI am a better person and a better teacher when I\u2019m not having anxiety about emails when I should be spending time on myself or my family, so I\u2019m setting this healthy boundary for our teacher-student relationship.\u201d They were actually really receptive to that. Our capitalist, tech-connected culture has created this expectation that we\u2019re available 24\/7, and it can destroy our real-life personal relationships and our work\/life balance. I know it did for mine. It\u2019s not easy, but it\u2019s been so worth the effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any tips for the current MA students?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is really tough, because there are so many things I feel like I could say. But I\u2019ll go with this: life goes on after graduating. I promise. When I graduated the MA in WRD, I had basically been a \u201cprofessional student\u201d for 20 years of my life. And I was terrified of not having that structure and that support and that safety when I left. I knew what it meant to be a student, and I was so scared of not being that anymore. I kinda feel like I\u2019ve been relearning my identity this past year, and I\u2019ll be honest, it\u2019s been scary. <\/em>It\u2019s been hard.<\/em> It\u2019s taken a lot of reflection (which the MA in WRD made me really good at lol). You got this.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hear what alumna Meg Palmer has to say about life, work, and WRD.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":11602,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558,471,26],"tags":[550,474,19],"class_list":["post-11601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-graduate","category-student-alumni-news","tag-alumni-spotlight","tag-digital-writing","tag-teaching-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}