October issue no 12$11 99 (3)

What can you do with a degree in

writing & rhetoric? a look at some of the ways our alumni have put their training in writing and rhetoric to work

On the cover Megan Tillman, AKA "Megz Kelly" is the lyricist and vocalist leading Austin's breakout hip-hop band Magna Carda to national acclaim. She says her time as a student of creative writing helped her develop as a songwriter.

Writers are in demand

When most people think of the careers of professional writers, they think of novelists, poets, or maybe journalists, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the number of jobs for all writers is projected to grow 2-10% by 2024.

Here at St. Edward's University in Austin, Texas, the career paths of our Writing and Rhetoric graduates are as broad and varied as their interests. Attracted by our students' reputation for excellence, recruiters from the tech sector all the way to social media writing actively scout SEU Writing grads.

Right: Samantha Driscoll works for Shape Magazine in NYC.

POLITICS

Christ Bynoe: former White House Communications Intern, now works in communications for a US Senator.

SHELBY COLE

State and national political campaign communications director

KATIE TAHUAHUA

Local and state political communications and speech writer

ENTERTAINMENT

KELSEY HOWARD

Virtual world writer for Wargames video game Master of Orion

SAM JACKSON

Humor writer for Cracked.com

Jason Cole is a scout for the Tampa Bay Rays

As a senior writing and rhetoric major at SEU, Jason Cole was writing scouting reports for Baseball Prospectus. That's where the management of MLB team the Tampa Bay Rays saw his work. They contacted him for an interview and now he's a part of the organization, watching potential recruits and writing about them to help the team make staffing decisions.Â

JOURNALISM

From the Dallas Morning News to the Washington Post and points in between, our reporters are covering the important stories.Â

BROOKE LEWIS Journalist and our first Newhouse School Graduate

Brooke's journalism focus and work for the student newspaper Hilltop Views helped her win one of the most competitive graduate fellowships in the US: the Magazine Writing Program at the Newhouse Graduate School of Public Communications at Syracuse University.

Since graduating, Brooke has been covering important feature stories for the Houston Chronicle.

Samantha Mendoza

Fulbright Scholar is SEU's second fellow at Syracuse

Sam Mendoza (above left) spent a year in India teaching English as a Fulbright fellow before accepting the second Newhouse fellowship for the St. Edward's University Writing and Rhetoric major. Like Brooke Lewis, Sam received a full-ride scholarship, one of only two in the nation, to attend the Master's program in Magazine Writing.

Oh, and while she was here at SEU, she was the President of the student body.

The Fulbright Scholars

And in 2015, the Writing major had five Fulbright Scholars

In addition to Sam Mendoza, four other Writing and Rhetoric majors were named Fulbright Teaching Fellows.

Hannah Thornby, Rebekah Morton, Danielle Rivera, Sam, and Jenna Jaco, along with five students from other majors, set a record for SEU with ten Fulbright Scholars, making us one of the top universities per capita for producing Fulbright winners. All worked for Hilltop Views when they were at SEU.

TRISTAN HALLMAN

Hallman covers crime for the Dallas Morning News

 Tristan Hallman went from an editorial position at Hilltop Views to the City University of New York (CUNY) Journalism School. Now a reporter for the nationally recognized Dallas Morning News, Tristan covers crime stories for the city and is often featured on television news as well.

His beat takes him from courthouses to jails. In this photo, Tristan (right) interviews a shooting suspect.Â

Sara Sanchez: Reporter for the El Paso Times

As an undergraduate Writing and Rhetoric major at SEU, Sara wrote for Hilltop Views. While still enrolled in her Magazine Writing class, she wrote and published her first feature story, which would be one of several that she would go on to produce for Austin Fit magazine.

TECHNOLOGY

TRISTAN HALLMAN

Melissa Hilliard

Like many of our SEU Writing and Rhetoric majors, Melissa Hilliard applied for the nationally competitive summer tech writing internship at National Instruments. She not only won the internship, but was hired and was named Rookie of the Year. She now visits St. Edward's University Career Prep and Tech Writing classes as a recruiter along with Sam Farias and Jenna Jaco, also SEU writing alumni.

BAILEY KNIGHT

Bailey Knight is a technical editor at the University of Texas's Advanced Research Laboratory (UTARL) and works on user guides for unmanned underwater vehicles.

As an undergraduate student at SEU, Bailey planned to go into academia, but once in graduate school discovered a love of technical writing and editing, which she taught at Texas A&M before returning to Austin to work for UTARL.

EILEEN NUNEZ

You might be surprised to learn that none of our alumni who are currently tech writers would have considered themselves techies when they were in school. What makes the attractive to employers is that they can communicate complicated material clearly. Eilieen works in Austin for Software Advice.

EDUCATION

"Writing? What are you going to do with that, teach?"

While relatively few of our graduates go into teaching, some do, like Ross Green (left) and Denae Dibrell (Right). Both teach middle school English, Ross in a Texas public school and Denae through Teach For America.

MARKETING

d n a e r o m

Camille Dehne

After getting a start as a marketing and events intern for C3 Presents in Austin during her time at SEU, Camille moved to New York City to work as a marketing writer for the fitness fashion retailer Outside Voices.

Fashion Nicole Seligman is the executive editor of Junebug Weddings and the voice behind the popular blog Writes Like a Girl.Â

Novelist

Are you going to write novels? Some do. Several of our alumni have written and published books, Carly Hallman, pictured above, published her first novel The Year of the Goose in 2015 to critical acclaim and has since published a second, Farewell to Walmart (2016)

Choose your own

Adventure Like to travel? We have alumni teaching and working in Ireland, Japan, China, and France.

Some stay closer to home. e l p eo P ok o B

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Our alumni have been accepted into some of the nation's top graduate and professional programs, too.

For example, Texas Christian University Baylor University Carnegie Mellon University The University of Colorado The University of Texas The University of Washington Sarah Lawrence College Boston University Texas State University Texas Tech University Texas A&M University Southern Methodist University Columbia University New York University The University of Denver Syracuse University