To graduation and beyond: how I went from an Environmental Studies student to a data storyteller

“What are you going to do after you graduate?”

Ah, the most typical question I’ve ever received. At university, I developed something of a Pavlovian response to the question, in which case the expectant eye contact and “so…” that precedes the question triggers a sudden craving for an eye roll every single time. As an Environmental Studies major, I believe there is probably no other major on campus who is more familiar with the question.

My answer is also pretty typical: “I don’t know.”

Trust me, I wanted to have an answer. It was not out of sheer rebelliousness or annoyance that I chose not to give a clear response, although my RBF (resting bitch face) probably said otherwise.

As a student, it was tough for me to have a clear idea of what lay beyond graduation. All these years, I’ve had no exact goal, even during my university days. Of course, that was scary. I had fear, expectation, and uncertainty all mixed in my brain. Add in a dash of occasional panic, and I was set to graduate.

Getting to where I am now — being a writer at Kontinentalist — took a while. Even when I first joined the company as an intern, I had a completely different path in mind, and Konti had been meant to be only a temporary phase of my life. As someone who studied a major that had mostly geared us up for academic research, it never once crossed my mind that being a writer for a living was possible.