How two Penn State students turned their dreams into reality
She uses her hands to amaze our eyes, he uses his mouth to delight our ears. But above all, they use their hearts to pursue their dreams. Here is the story of Christopher and Emily, and how they turned their dreams into reality.
STEP 1 – Listening to your heart
8:20 AM, Christopher is still asleep. We will never know in what magical universe his dream has taken him to. But what all his relatives know is that he has always dreamt of getting into sports media. Now a Senior English Major, Christopher has started his path towards that dream with a sports blog and several podcasts.
“When I was 16, I worked in a bar and the manager got a job in a pretty big start-up sports blog called Barstool Sports. I started following those guys and I wanted to work for them,” said Chris. Seven years later, their company received a huge investment, and they started hiring people. In the meantime, Chris had become a lacrosse coach. He was then more motivated than never to work for a sports podcast.
8:20 AM, Emily has been awake for an hour. She is used to starting her day with a drawing session on her iPad, in which she lets her hands and her pencil dance to the rhythm of her imagination. Now a Strategic Communication Major, Emily has, for as long as she can remember, always been in love with art in its many forms.
“I thought I wanted to do event planning after I took a year-long public relations class where we planned an event for my campus. So, I worked as an Events Intern for the Pittsburgh Zoo,” said Emily. This experience taught her a lot and made Emily realize that what she really wanted to do was graphic design.
STEP 2 – Staying focused on your goal
8:40 AM, Christopher wakes up and instinctively looks at the family picture on his bed table. He grew up in a big family where the love for sport is genetic. Despite the support he received, Chris went through difficult times. When he heard his former boss was hiring, Chris decided to start a show, on his own, with two episodes a week. Every time it dropped, he sent him the link, hoping to get attention. “For over a year and a half I’ve been sending him links.” Eventually, one of the content managers contacted Chris. This was six months ago.
“Over my life I have worked many different jobs that all taught me one thing. Work hard.”—Chris
8:40 AM, Emily is still drawing, and she won’t stop until she is totally satisfied. Emily has been through difficult times as well. “My previous campus offered a graphic design course right when I moved to Portland, so I wasn’t able to take it.” With books and a huge motivation, Emily taught herself graphic design.
“I have always been told how hard it is to make it as an artist.”—Emily
Even though self-teaching was not easy, hearing this sentence over and over was the hardest part for Emily. But this young artist is determined to prove the world that this saying is wrong.
STEP 3 – Dreaming big and different
Drawing and sports blogging undoubtedly allow our protagonists to express themselves and to stand out from the crowd. Emily calls herself a Digital Dreamer and created an amazing blog bearing that name. She has big (digital) dreams and her future as a graphic designer looks bright. A sci-fi, anime and video game lover, she creates modern and unique artworks. Emily started her business creating social media content for gamers, from Twitter headers to icons.
Chris plans to bring a different perspective to sports. “The podcast is a cross between sports and comedy. We don’t take ourselves too seriously, we talk about anything and everything. It’s not so much in-depth sports analysis, we try to find the humour in stories surrounding teams and players.” His unique humour and perseverance seem to start paying off. “We might sell one of our podcasts, named Couch Coach, to a podcast company which would get us in front advertisers and let us monetize.”
STEP 4 – Keeping in mind that everyone is a hero
According to the Washington Examiner, 82% of Americans consider they have achieved or are the on way to achieving their dreams.
This was the story of two of them. These two self-made students created something on their own, thanks to hard work and passion. Right now, you might think Chris and Emily are heroes, but they are just ordinary people. Or maybe, all ordinary people are heroes…
Cet article a été rédigé par :
Gioia Dufau
M2 M2i 2019-2020, parcours CEIE
Cet article a été supervisé par :
Sacha Casset
M2 M2i 2019-2020, Rédacteur en chef, parcours CEIE
Nos autres actualités et retours sur événements :
Témoignages et portraits en lien avec nos événements :