Profession Found by Peter Kowalke
Unschoolers at College

Recently I set a Hampshire College record for youngest student to run the campus newspaper. Well, technically I might not have been the youngest-I entered Hampshire a few months ago as a 19-year-old transfer-student, and I'm probably not the first 19-year-old to run the paper. I am the most green, however, having been at Hampshire less than a semester.

My quick rise to Editor-in-Chief isn't as impressive as it sounds, though. Hampshire College has two regular publications, not only the newspaper but also a popular magazine that prints student rants and fiction. Neither the magazine nor the newspaper is very well written or much respected by the student body. Both publications print issues twice a month, if lucky. And, to further debunk the accomplishment, I was the only serious candidate interviewing for the job. The existing staff could hire me or hand the paper over to the student advisor, a graduate student at the University of Massachusetts; the current editor was stepping down after a failed stint at the paper, and they needed someone fast. I was their man.

The opening at the newspaper was a fateful one. Originally I had enrolled at Hampshire College with the intention of taking a break from publishing. My teen years had been a flurry of deadlines, editing sessions at three in the morning and desperate telephone calls asking for submissions. Were it not for my small publishing outfit and our flagship publication, Nation Magazine, my life would be vastly different. I probably would have a life, lots of close friends, and the satisfaction of actually having completed that Latin program my mom bought me a couple years ago. My SAT scores would have been much higher, too, I think, as I was more focused on getting the magazine out than studying math. Academics always took a backseat, and I didn't want the same situation in college. Education couldn't be something done after page layout debates and story meetings.

At first, the break from publishing was great; I was relatively free, a great weight lifted off my shoulders. Only a couple weeks into the semester, though, and I felt displaced and restless. Who was I if not an editor? I looked at the physics people and I wasn't one of them; they used bananas and oranges during lunch to illustrate quantum theory concepts, whereas I rarely talked physics with such passion. I looked at the math people and I wasn't one of them; they churned out matrix permutations dramatically faster than I ever could. I looked at history people and no luck; what I know about history they could teach in a week. No dice with computer science, psychology, economics, literature or biology, either. Everywhere I turned, I saw people who weren't me. The one area where I did fit was journalism.
I didn't just fit the editor mould-I craved it. I needed the purpose it brought; I couldn't be just a student. That was too hollow a life for me.

I still had a bimonthly column in Home Education Magazine and a constant stream of research papers to write, but I needed more. One of the first signs that I yearned for more was the creation of Notes from College, a periodic e-mail update once or twice a week that highlighted my current thoughts while at college. I began to focus on my nightly journal with added fervor, too, and my editor social habits remained unchanged: I always searched for individuals and their stories. Every meal I would sit at a different table in the dining commons, with different people. My questions almost always were global-what were they like as children, what were the issues in their lives, where were they hoping to head? I began fraternizing with the movers and shakers on campus-the college president, dean of students, dean of faculty, heads of the student government. Subconsciously, I was building towards something.
By my fifth week at college, plots to reform the printed campus media already were dancing through my head. I decided to start a third campus publication. It wasn't because I needed journalism and the media, I told myself. The campus needed quality reading material. I had the vision and the needed experience. How could I not help the community?

Yeah, right. I was in deep.

Even with my flimsy excuse, I saw the writing on the wall: I couldn't keep myself from the publishing world. That bothered me, because I didn't want to be a man of words. Words and publishing held no romance. They weren't sexy. I could appreciate good writing and editing, and I did like design, but I had little respect for the field. I could write when I was 14, after all. I wasn't the best writer, but I could write. This demeaned the whole profession in my eyes. I wanted something much more exciting, mysterious and tough, like quantum physics.

Yet, here I was back in the publishing arena. Here I was wanting to be editor again.

As I took a second look at publishing, I let the campus publication I had planned die an abrupt, quiet death. My original plan was the splashy launch of a campus magazine so good that it would outclassed its competition and consume one of both of the other publications within its first year. I changed strategy when word leaked that the current editor of the campus newspaper was resigning, though. There was no point starting a third publication when I could takeover one that already existed.

So, I became editor of the campus newspaper. And, I started enjoying the job almost immediately. I had purpose again, and excitement. The first five to seven weeks at college I had very little flair and confidence. But, now I was in my element. No wonder: my life to that point had been all about magazines and publishing. I had managed the magazine section of a bookstore. I had worked for a printer. I had honed my database and sales skills, which is good for circulation. I had started my own publishing company and begun writing for publication when I was 14. Further, I never had met an English professor who hadn't become my friend-I even was surprised with an English Student of the Year award at the community college I attended before Hampshire.
I wasn't an editor, though, a publishing guy. Not professionally. The thought never had crossed my mind before, even though I pretended publishing was my life's mission when I wrote my college admission essays. That was a ruse so I could get scholarship money, not something I really intended for myself.

The semester had been leading to this point since the day I arrived. I felt the pressure to find my calling now that I was away from home and only three years out from needing a real job. I was 20, for gosh sake! I needed a profession, and I needed one fast. There are so many bright, capable people in college, I needed to specialize soon if I expected a job after college. And realistically, where did I have a chance? At Hampshire I met the future doctors on campus, the future artists, musicians, physicists, union leaders and mathematicians. When I used the same criteria on myself, I was an editor or writer or Managing Editor of a publication like Nation or the college newspaper. Sure, I possessed many skills and maybe even moderate aptitude, but so did other people. I might be good at math, but others were great at it. Where I excelled was the editorial desk.
While writing and publishing started to sound like my calling, college helped reform my dim opinion of the profession. Before Hampshire, I believed there wasn't much to learn about writing. A young neurolinguist changed my mind, though. I was in her brain and language course, and she completely undressed one of my research papers. She didn't attack the content as much as she ripped into my style. The essay had flaws, sure; I knew I wasn't perfect. Joanna Morris identified every deformity, though, using the arsenal of linguistics. I was silenced and, masochistically, excited at the same time by the prospect of dramatic growth. Writing had more intellectual depth than I had realized, and I still had a lot to learn. Writing suddenly was exciting unto itself.

One of my friends from college also had a magazine editor as a father. She impressed me with tales of upscale dinner parties and New York City social life. The stories stuck a romantic chord in me, and made editing sound respectable, in line with medicine and the hard sciences. I started envisioning myself as an editor. Yeah, I could live that life. I might even be good at it.

So, all of a sudden my life has direction. People have been telling me for years that I should make my living with words, but I never seriously considered it. Now I do. My whole life has been building to a career in publishing without me even noticing it. As an unschooler, I did only what I felt like doing. Supposedly I'd learn what I needed for the job that was right for me; I'd train and study without realizing it. Nice idea, but I didn't fully believe it before. Now I do. Now it all makes sense: unschooling, my life, where I'm headed.

Unschooling does prepare you for your future job-if you look closely and listen to your heart. It took a while, but I think I'm listening now.

Originally printed in the March-April, 1999 issue of Home Education Magazine. You can contact Peter through his web site, GrownWithoutSchooling.com.