Why did I choose to study at McGill? I could answer this question with some flowery language about how McGill was the perfect location to pursue my educational pursuits, but I think it’s better if I’m honest. I have been lucky enough to make a career by calling people out for being pretentious, so I don’t see why I shouldn’t do the same to myself. I chose McGill because it was the hardest school to get into. I admit, it’s not the most noble of reasons for choosing a school, but I can guarantee I’m not the only person who made their choice based on this metric.
It was a sink or swim environment, where I had to figure out everything on my own and nothing could have prepared me more for life.”
I worked on the Tribune all four years I was at McGill and it was a huge part of my life. When I arrived at McGill, I was convinced that I wanted to be a sportswriter, and after four years of working in the sports section of the Tribune, I definitely discovered that I did NOT want to be a sportswriter. But I did walk away from the experience with a great set of skills like effective writing, layout, editing, and resenting the McGill Daily.
This is going to sound like an insult but is actually a compliment – McGill didn’t care about me. It was a sink or swim environment, where I had to figure out everything on my own and nothing could have prepared me more for life. It made me more independent and self-reliant than some school that would have held my hand for four years.
My Montreal experience was fantastic. I arrived a few years after the referendum, so rent was about as cheap as it’s ever been in a major city. I liked the area around McGill, but I was lucky enough to befriend Montreal locals who showed me the rest of the city like Ville Émard, NDG, Greenfield Park. Those were some of my best memories. But what I loved most about the city was that Montreal was a place that didn’t ever look outward for validation. Being from Toronto, all we do is look for outward validation, so it was so nice to be away from that.
Hollywood didn’t care about me, no one was going to hold my hand and show me how to get my next job. Luckily, McGill had prepared me for situations like these.”
After McGill, I went to graduate school in the U.S. where I met my wife. We were both two years into a PhD when we realized that academia was not for us. So we got married and dropped out of school. We were in Indiana with a fresh marriage certificate, a Volkswagen Jetta, and nothing but time. We could go anywhere so we decided to chase my dream of being a TV writer by moving to Los Angeles. This was an extremely naive and foolish move. And yet, after a year and a half in L.A., I started a blog called Stuff White People Like that gained some popularity and was eventually turned into a book.
The book did reasonably well and was made into a script for a TV pilot that was never shot. A lot of people in this situation would have been crushed, having been popular one moment and then dead weight the next. Hollywood didn’t care about me, no one was going to hold my hand and show me how to get my next job. Luckily, McGill had prepared me for situations like these, so I dusted myself off and landed my first staff writing job on an MTV show called Good Vibes. From there I worked on a number shows like The Mick (FOX) and Vice Principals (HBO) before I finally landed on black-ish (ABC) in 2017.