Chelsea Houde

Over the past four years, she has worked as a freelance writer, and she has held communications positions in digital marketing and international development. She has been working as a technical writer in medical education since July 2014.

I never planned to study English. In the beginning I just wanted some sort of formal recognition for the fact that I have always read a lot of books. Once you reach a certain age they stop giving out ribbons for that kind of thing. But in my first English Literature class at Carleton, something happened: I started to read books differently. Suddenly, I wasn’t just reading books anymore. I was reading with an eye for context, form, rhetoric, and theoretical concepts. I started asking questions and setting out to answer them.

By the second half of my undergraduate career I was certain that I had made the perfect accidental choice. My professors at Carleton helped to guide and encourage me as my interests and curiosities grew more focused, and the M.A program offered a means by which to explore those interests in greater depth.

I look back on my time at Carleton with much gratification. I am thankful for the experiences I had, the friends I made, and the skills I developed. I am also thrilled that my evolved understanding of literature and text has served as the foundation upon which I have built my career in technical communications.