With an English professor for a mother and a librarian for a grandmother, I suppose it was only inevitable that I would grow up loving the English language. I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t devouring every book I could get my hands on (even if it required my mother reading it out loud to me). Books gave me so much; in addition to being a great way to spend my time, reading also improved my vocabulary, spelling, and grammar skills. When I was in middle school I was enough of a “word nerd” that I wound up competing in the Scripps National Spelling Bee, something that I never would have been able to do if it hadn’t been for the hours I’d spent reading. (The only reason I was able to correctly spell the word “eleemosynary” was because I’d spent years poring over The Princess Diaries and its assorted sequels.)
College: The Love is Born
Curiously enough, I didn’t truly embrace my love of reading and writing until midway through my second year of college. I was determined to step away from my family line of humanities-minded women, and decided that I would pursue UCLA’s Business Economics major. That major was hilariously wrong for me. The second I stepped into my first accounting class, I knew I didn’t belong there. Every time one of my General Education classes would give me an essay or another writing assignment, I would prioritize it above any other commitment, and have a great time with it. I had taken a Shakespeare class for a GE requirement during my very first quarter, and no class brought me as much enjoyment as that one had. After taking my first college English class during the fall of my sophomore year, I knew that it was the path for me. I didn’t even wait until the class was over; midway through the quarter, I officially made the decision to declare my major. Everyone who had scared me at the beginning of college with their obnoxious yet well-meaning “It’s a tough job market, you need to pick a major that translates to a career!” couldn’t be further from my mind.
When I think back to my college years, some of my favorite memories come from the literature I had the opportunity to read. I had read A Tale of Two Cities in high school and loathed it, but Oliver Twist captivated me in university. I spectacularly failed at comprehending The Sound and the Fury when I was sixteen, but I adored As I Lay Dying at nineteen. Since then, The Sound and the Fury and I have managed to reconcile our differences, and I am to this day actively working my way through Faulkner’s bibliography.
Professional Writing
These days, I don’t spend too much time writing literary analyses. Since my 2016 graduation from UCLA with a B.A. in English and a minor in Film, Television, and Digital Media, I have been a professional copy and content writer and editor for nearly two and a half years now (topping the three-year mark if you choose to include my website and magazine internships while I was still in school). Language is my life, and having a career where I can use my words in order to reach out to people and help my employer is something that I am very blessed to have. Through content management and editing, I have been able to watch other writers grow and further develop their skills, and I am always ready to innovate.
Elizabeth Lagatta 