Natalie Tombasco on Her English Major at CSI

The following is an computer-generated summary of the video transcript.

Hi there my name is Natalie some Tombasco and I'm an alumnus of the College of Staten Island's English department. I grew up in great kills in a working class Italian American household. I graduated in 2014 with honors as a first-generation college student. And so while college presented many challenges to me as someone without prior knowledge of academia I often felt like I was walking around in a in a dark room trying to figure things out. I did find a home in my English classes where I just felt like something just clicked. I always knew that I enjoyed reading books and dabbling and writing but I was unaware that I could center my life around what I believed to be a hobby. Ultimately I decided to major in English with a creative writing concentration. It just felt like a natural fit where no longer did I find it necessary to cram struggle, doubt myself or try to fit into a certain mold. It just came easy. I find that English majors possessed imaginative problem solved skills, emotional intelligence and effective communication. They often go off to work in a wide range of fields such as grant writing, copy editing, journalism, speech writing, language pathology, go off the law school just to name a few options but there's always teaching and a lot of editing positions as well. My writing journey did begin atCSI where the English department I found to be a real hidden treasure. They are home to an award winning fan faculty and I found to be a place that really fosters literary citizenship where we were able to branch out to the city and go off to readings different off broadway productions that are just a ferry ride away. Some of my favorite classes was lee papa's American drama class and Michael Skylar's British and American literary traditions where we engaged text through different critical frameworks, presented papers at conferences and even led classroom disk. I really honed my writing within the varied genre workshops that are offered by Kate Marvin, Tiene Majeste and Eva Chin. Each one of these professors really made me feel seen as if I possessed something that I was unaware of myself in workshop. I cultivated my writing voice. I found community friendships that I still have today and mentorship that gave me advice and inspired me to apply to graduate school and walk me through that process.