Falling in Love

When I was a sophomore in college, I was accepted into the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media where I fell in love. It was not a transient love-one that stayed by my side during the good times and vanished during the bad-but rather a love so deep that few would understand. It was not the love for a person, but the love for a concept. It was the love for storytelling

Storytelling entered through my door that second semester, 2022, when I took MEJO 137. As I watched all the great advertising my professor, Gary Kayye lectured about, I began to understand the authenticity of branding at the intersection of storytelling. For someone a girl who always thought she would pursue a career in medicine, this was quite the accomplishment.

But Hussman brought about a new era in my life, an era in which my love for storytelling is greatly amplified. Class after class, my life was put on hold for a couple of hours and I was able to speak and read and research about storytelling more actively than ever. 

Through the year, storytelling has evolved into one of the most memorable forms of marketing. Today, I am prouder than ever of loving storytelling — of having something that distinguishes me from the rest. It is not often the case for an Asian-American who was raised with the expectation of studying medicine to exhibit such passion and devotion towards a subject that is foreign to her native country. Nevertheless, storytelling is a big part of who I am today, and an even bigger part of what I will be doing in the future.