Storytelling entails radical vulnerability. Writers mold words from their minds into tangible reality. For Alyssa Chang, conflicting emotions about writing and journalism spiraled into creative uncertainty. Still entranced by the alchemy of language, Chang bears many titles: a DIS ‘22 graduate, Emerson College ‘25 graduate, former editor-in-chief of the Jets Flyover, professional writer, university journalist, marketer–but most notably a persistent and talented soul with a keen sense of self.
Chang created what is now the Jets Flyover website in an effort to respond to the loss of print news during the 2021 pandemic. Having majored in journalism and minored in political science and marketing, she now looks back on her time at DIS as the foundation of her journalistic identity. Chang said, “My journalism experience really springboarded from DIS and making the Jets Flyover website.”
As a bookworm, Chang said, “I feel like I was always reading as a kid. I think if you like to read, sometimes not everybody kind of naturally does [think about it], but you think about writing at least. Or the way writing works and so it was always interesting to me.”
That early intimacy with books intensified her relationship with literature and journalism. Chang said, “For writing or reading, that instinct is very difficult to disentangle. I think I’ve always been drawn to reading just naturally. I’ve always liked writing and been honestly, maybe just good at it since I was younger. I felt like there was almost nothing else that I could do because I wanted to do journalism” By the time Chang entered college, five years as editor-in-chief unconsciously narrowed the future she so obviously believed would be final. It served as a catalyst for her reluctant pursuit of journalism.
However, committing to writing professionally complicated what had once felt instinctive. Chang said, “I almost naturally was like, yeah, so I guess I should just move in that direction. But especially for things like journalism or creative writing, that is not just a calling that you have because you’re naturally inclined towards it, but something that you need to be pretty, I think, staunch and set on to do.”
Although Chang established a relationship with cultural conversations early on, she recognized the unease that tacitly tagged along. Journalism demanded certainty she still struggled to locate. “I don’t think you can just drift into those things and be, I guess, I have a social safety net. I just think knowing myself, I didn’t want to go into that knowing that I wasn’t fully committed to it,” said Chang.
She refused to completely immerse herself in the literary world. Resisting the pressure to declare a fixed future, her hesitation is not a definitive rejection of writing or journalism. Rather, it left room for intellectual freedom and awareness of choice. Chang said, “It could even be something that I commit to later, but I just don’t think that at this point in my life. I need to have a structured path that goes, yeah, I’ll do four years in this, and then I’m going to immediately go into publishing or journalism.”
While juggling a summer internship and writing workshops, Chang sought to unearth and claim creative agency. Yet again, she questioned her belonging and how grounded she felt. Chang said, “I attended this thing called ‘Grub Street’ in Boston. It’s just like a writing collective. And they’re free groups and classes for creative writing and stuff. So I definitely dipped my toes into it. I think for me, just neither of those things feels sustainable as a job, honestly.”
Sustainability and practicality, she soon realized, would steer her career choices, sharpening her own sense of certainty in the job market and the kind of lifestyle each job might entail. “The lifestyle of journalism, I think that was specifically not for me,” Chang continued “I have a lot of friends who are super dedicated to it and some of them are TV reporters and that entails not just speaking, not just announcing but also writing your own scripts actually and then memorizing them and then speaking them in front of the camera.”
The image of the job, Chang suggested, can mystify the reality of living it. “A lot of students forget to think about the part of the job that isn’t vibes, I guess. Especially if they don’t know anybody in that career which, it’s really hard to know a journalist or creative people in your vicinity”
Soon, the supposed glamour of the life of a journalist clashed with the balance she desired, her idea of success. “What I really want to have is balance,” Chang said. “To fully live and enjoy my life including my career and I think I made a good choice in that regard because I [now] have a career path that will allow me to have a very well-rounded life and not one that requires me to entirely devote my life to work as much.”
This outlook also shaped the way Chang viewed the threshold between adolescence and adulthood and the institutional pressure young people face when choosing a career. The challenge, she said, does not stem from the decline letters but from the trepidation surrounding the job search itself. “It’s hard for everybody. I don’t mean in terms of getting rejections from companies. Being discouraged about the concept of getting a job to begin with because I feel like that begins in high school and the way that adults talk about getting jobs sometimes I feel like these adults don’t actually know how getting a job works for these specific industries.”
Unafraid of the rejection, Chang applied to multiple internships over the course of her college life and landed an internship at Pronghorn, a liquor company, and Boston Globe, a news organization. There, she felt drawn to marketing, though she never dropped her writer persona. “The summer internship isn’t the job that I have now, but it was with a spirit kind of company called Pronghorn. Doing both that internship and my [current] internship that led me to my current job in marketing at the same time that summer,” said Chang.
Now an in-house marketing employee at a tech company, Chang said, “It feels maybe needlessly pessimistic for me when people are like, oh you need to do this or that in order to get a job and there are so many different ways you can get a job and some of those ways are ridiculously easy and some of them are really hard but, I think the hardest part is just not letting yourself be ruled by those narratives while you’re applying and just doing it.” Although Chang learned not to let career narratives shake her to the core, writing still presents obstacles: vulnerability.
Self-censorship and intimacy in their various forms haunt both Chang and her writing. Chang said, “Realistic thoughts about writing in the future, I mean, the scary thing about writing is that it’s very personal. When you’re doing journalism, you don’t have so much of yourself on the page. You’re usually asking other people questions or you’re writing about something you think is cool, which is also personal but not super intimate with the audience. For now at least writing feels kind of intimate, too intimate for me to do like publicly but maybe in the future. I would consider it.”
She now wrestles with how much of herself she wants to present on a page at a point where self-moderation and intimacy subtly intersect. However, underneath that realism lies a lasting love and faith in writing itself. She continues to keep the literary world within reach. “I like writing so I usually continue to do it in whatever way I can. I wrote for my school and I did TV news for my school and like a bunch of other random capacities. I don’t know what that’ll become now that I’m not in school. But I’ll just keep submitting things to literary magazines and stuff because you can do that on the side,” Chang said.
Chang spent years navigating student newspapers, school magazines, and college staffrooms. No longer confined to one lane, Chang and her writing occupy the many corners of uncertainty and creative longing. Chang said, “Work hard at what you do, but realize that you can. You’re not trapped into doing anything.”
