Nobody tells you how life is supposed to go after you graduate from college. I had toiled for years to finish my Bachelor’s degree in environmental studies at a prestigious university and my interest in the field had waned. I had little clue what I was going to do next, but I did know where I was going to stay.I applied to job after job with hopeful anticipation only to receive rejection after rejection or no response at all. Did all my hard work amount to nothing in the real world?My parents eventually gave me an ultimatum: “Find a job or go back to school.”I surveyed my options: I could work a low-end job that didn’t require further schooling or I could go back to school. The job search prospects were dismal, so I considered going back to school even though I didn’t know what I’d do with a Master’s degree.One day, I asked myself the pivotal question: What did I actually want to get a Master’s degree in? And that’s when I knew I wanted to obtain a degree in creative writing. I had always wanted to work with words for a living and I had an undying love of story. I did a quick search on the internet for nearby universities, and one program in particular sounded incredibly enticing and was everything I wanted.But I was still afraid. What would I even do with this degree? It was so, well, artsy. And everyone knows the awful trope of the starving artist.As the weeks went by with my hopes of finding work diminishing, I saw a Youtube short of Jonathan Roumie who plays Jesus in The Chosen talking about making the decision to become an actor even knowing the challenges of that path.How did he make that leap? one might ask. The answer is: by faith.So I looked and leapt into the world of creative writing. After one and a half years of writing my own stories, listening to people within the field speak, and critiquing my peers’ work, I graduated with my Master of Fine Arts in what I wanted to do most. It distinguished me as someone who took the craft seriously. Seriously enough to go to school for it. And I believe it’s one of the reasons why I am writing for StoryTerrace today.