Made by reading

A Bachelor of Arts degree at McGill involves many things but, perhaps first and foremost, it involves a ton of reading! I remember opening my books the first weekend of my first year and realizing that I had no less than 500 pages to read before Monday. And it only got more intense from there, unfortunately.

Of course, you can't just read. McGill students also need to critically engage with the material: analyzing, questioning biases, making connections between different ideas, and so much more. I had always loved reading, but this was on a whole other level. I remember long nights in the McLennan Library with friends, moaning about the pages I still had to get through before I could go to sleep.

Ironically enough, today I find myself in a career that requires just as much weekend reading, if not more. I work in creative development at a production company, helping to source, develop, package, and produce films and television series. That means that a large portion of my week is spent reading – books, articles, scripts, and more. And of course, critically engaging with the material. Is this commercial? What new ideas does it bring forth? How can we make this story better?

Ultimately, the biggest takeaway from my time at McGill was not my ability to sit and read through large amounts of material (although I'm definitely grateful for that training!). It was consuming the different and diverse ideas in my various readings, and then engaging with these ideas in classes and tutorials. Four years of this fundamentally shaped who I am and the way I see the world.

This, I think, is the most important way that McGill made me. I'm lucky enough to work in a creative field, helping to find and shape the stories that get told, and the ideas that are shared. The thinkers and writers I spent four years learning from at McGill influenced me in more ways than I can count (and more ways than I probably even realize!). I hope to pass those ideas on in the work that I do.