If you had told me three years ago that I would study creative writing in college, I would have laughed in your face. Seriously — a belly laugh — because to my core I believed that I would become a veterinarian one day. What happened to that animal-loving little girl? Well, she took organic chemistry and then realized she’s content owning pets, not operating on them.
A lot of professors I’ve interviewed for this column have told me that their path was non-linear, so I can’t say I was surprised when Claremont McKenna College’s professor of literature Belinda Tang told me something similar. However, there was something about this interview that felt different. It felt more personal because Tang models the type of writer and educator I hope to be someday.
Tang began her academic career as an economics major, but changed her mind after a single creative writing course in her last semester. “Taking that class was the reason why I became a writer,” she said. “So working with undergrads and being able to teach them was also quite attractive for me.”
After that fateful class, Tang went on to grad school for writing, a decision that solidified her choice to become a writer. “I’ve never been around so many people that love to write and were thinking exactly about the same questions I was … It was just fun, even outside of classes,” she said.
Hearing that, I felt something uncomfortably familiar. I know what it is to move through a life that looks impressive on paper but feels hollow in your own hands. I know what it is like to choose the “smart” path. Tang found her clarity in a classroom full of writers; I found mine in the middle of a campus I suddenly didn’t recognize as mine.
I, like Tang, began in a pre-professionally slanted field. After one particularly bad semester, while I lugged my bag of chemistry lab supplies across the Santa Monica Community College campus, I woke up from what felt like a dream. I looked around at my life and realized that it wasn’t my own. After that, I did the scariest thing I’ve ever done in my life: Pivot.
And so, I fearfully opened the transfer application — a decision that changed my life. At Pitzer College, I feel this amazing energy when I’m juggling my own projects, bouncing ideas off friends or getting lost in workshops and late-night writing sessions. Tang’s enthusiasm when talking about her path to writing captured that thrill: The joy of discovering that there are people out there thinking about the same things you are, struggling through the same questions and celebrating the same sort of victories.
I asked what Tang does when she’s not writing (which is often a dead-end question for writers), but turns out we share a hobby. “I love crafting. I’m a pretty big knitter … If I had a week off, I’d just focus on knitting and go into the knitting zone,” Tang shared. I laughed and shared a pattern for TikTok’s viral “Sailor Slippers” because, obviously, I’m on KnitTok.
Finally, in typical Office Hours for the Soul fashion, I asked what advice Tang would give her college-age self: “Decisions like grad school aren’t as pressured as they feel at the time … nothing will happen if you don’t figure it out at this moment or very soon,” she said.
I’ve felt that imagined pressure firsthand, staring at my portfolio of short stories, wondering if I’m making the “right” choice. Tang reminded me that it’s okay to take your time, to explore and let your path unfold naturally. Our talk reflected, once again, that the journey to your passions rarely looks like a straight line.
If there is a pattern emerging from all these interviews, it’s this: The people who end up somewhere meaningful allowed themselves to wander. They asked a million questions. They trusted that curiosity would be their compass.
Tang told me, “I’d encourage people to learn to sit through all the uncomfortable parts of writing.” Though she framed it around the craft of her first novel, it feels like a practical rule for adulthood. The professors I’ve interviewed didn’t have certainty; they had persistence. The key isn’t clarity from the start, but the discipline to keep showing up even when the outcome isn’t clear yet.
The straight line I imagined for myself was neat and efficient. It was also someone else’s blueprint. Letting go of it has been disorienting, but it has also been clarifying. I’m learning that passion is less about a lightning-bolt shock of inspiration and more about noticing what consistently pulls you back in.
There is something profoundly comforting about watching someone successful do exactly what you dream of doing and realizing they once stood where you stand now — unsure, questioning, mid-pivot. Seeing Tang build a life out of writing and teaching feels like proof that the path I chose isn’t naive or reckless — it’s possible. More than that, it feels like reassurance. If she found her way by following what lit her up, maybe I can too.
Siena Giacoma PZ ’27, aspiring writer and creative, survives on endless cycles of caffeine, half-written drafts and lofty promises to “finish that book tomorrow.” Her cat, Olive, remains skeptical, offering judgmental stares in place of encouragement.
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