By Emily Neelon, Communication Studies, Class of 2017

Standing in an auditorium packed full of camera-armed parents and black-gown clad twenty-somethings, Cassie Sheridan threw her graduation cap up into the air, giving a nod to four years of working smart, playing hard and learning important lessons in unexpected ways. But as Cassie’s cap, emblazoned with the words “I contain multitudes” floated back down to the ground among a sea of hopefully decorated headwear, the new grad didn’t have a clear-cut plan for what was to follow.

In her essay “On the dirtiest, saltiest, most important, most wandering year of my life (so far)” Cassie writes:

“I believed then, as most college grads do in those days leading up to and following that symbolic celebration, that I did in fact contain multitudes. I was wrong then, I can see that clearly now. And I wasn’t wrong for all the reasons you may be considering because like any other reasonable 20 something post graduate about to exit the warm womb of academia I was terrified and I was sad and I was also so lost as to where I was going next.”

I met Cassie for the first time as a newly hired reporter for The Beacon my freshman year.  She came to every staff meeting with impossible-sounding anecdotes from her year abroad in Salzburg, Austria and a list of story pitches that took five minutes to propose. I was totally intimidated by her – her funny stories were encased in a sense of wisdom that comes from one too many nights stranded in a foreign city or curled up until 2 am in a study room in the library.

Cassie has a distinct voice. Her sentences unwind with a raw kind of honesty. As the Living Editor of The Beacon, her column on dating was both touching and funny in its offerings on long-distance relationships and hookup culture at a school small enough that you will run into your ex and your rebound every time you walk to class. Although neither of us write for The Beacon anymore and Cassie became less intimidating in the hours we spent editing the newspaper each Wednesday night, surrounded by half-empty paper coffee-cups and pressing deadlines, she continues to inspire me with her adventurous spirit and inhibition. In reflecting on a year of post-grad wanderings she speaks to the questions many of us have about what happens when the structured walls of academia fall away.

With her dual degrees in political science and English and a portfolio full of strong, intentional writing, Cassie could have landed a traditional job in a number of fields. But there was distinct tension between who she was and who she thought she should be playing out inside her head. She decided to head home to Alaska for a summer of fishing in the Prince William Sound, “a place where absolutely no one asks if you have gone to college.”

This temporary position, “a final farewell to the great land of Alaska that had raised me”, revealed itself to be an important lesson in following her instincts. In the year that followed, she pushed her well-crafted cover letters and resumes aside and fished (a lot), traveled to South Asia, and enveloped herself in the beauty of her home state.

“I spent months (in South East Asia) scuba diving and beach walking and marveling and eating too much and drinking far too much rice wine and meeting locals and meeting elephants and entering new spaces and riding on slow boats and not showering near enough at all and when I now look at the photos from that time I wonder many things mostly how people could have possibly spoken with me when I looked so hideously dirty but also how it’s possible that I looked so unbelievably happy.”

As Cassie continues to lean into the unsureness of her life post grad, she speaks to the sense of clarity that came from following an unpopular path:

“And as I inch upon the one year anniversary of that cap flying into the air I wonder how it’s possible that 12 months ago I didn’t believe or want or know I’d be this person. Because in my year post grad I thought I’d be a lot of things but I certainly believed then that there was a good chance I’d be unhappy.”

To view Cassie’s 2015 Kate Regan Short Film Festival winning piece Life Aboard the Sea Prince:

https://sites.up.edu/kregansff/2015-festival-winners/

To read more about Cassie’s professional journey and how the Career Center helped her draw her own conclusions, check out her Q&A below: [Read more…]