College was a strange time for me, but let’s be honest. It’s strange for most people, so I’m not unique in that sense. Also like most people, I probably had no good ideas regarding what I actually wanted to do after graduating high school, so I just sort of picked a spot on the proverbial dart board and threw. I ditched all my honors courses senior year, and took classes like pottery, photography, and underwater basket weaving (not really). Needless to say, I had a lot of fun, but really hadn’t prepared myself for what came next. I’d always been pretty good at writing, or at least good enough that my idiot friends usually paid me to write their papers (haha, joke’s on them, suckers!), and it turned out I was pretty good a photography too. Ergo, I had my chosen path; photojournalism!
Ball State University was where I decided to hang my hat after graduating high school. It was cheap, relatively speaking, a few hours from home, and most importantly, they had a great journalism program. Now, I’m not one to brag, but up to this point I’d never gotten anything less than an A- on a writing assignment. Strike that. I did get a C once, but that was more due to the subject matter I chose than how good/bad the content was. Apparently, writing a practice business letter to a party keg supplier is inappropriate for a high school freshman… anyway, turns out, I sucked at journalism. Or, at least, at maintaining an objective voice. I ground through two years of torturous AP-styled hell before calling it quits and taking the biggest 180-degree course correction of my life.
After Ball State, I signed my life away to the United States Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA). I know what you’re thinking… photojournalism to the marines?? Well, no. Not exactly. USMMA is one of the five federal service academies, and is run in a quasi-military fashion, but this one is designed to churn out licensed mariners. You know… the ones who wear those dorky hats and look through weird brass things at the stars. Yes. Those mariners. Well, half of us were. The other half were engineers, which was my chosen path of study. As my wife likes to say, if I’d been on the Titanic, I would’ve gone down with the ship while shoveling coal to keep that bratty rich girl alive. Poor Leo got hosed…
Engineering graduates of USMMA “get out” (notice the prison lingo here) with an ABET-accredited degree and a Coast Guard issued Third Assistant Engineers license. After that, I spent the next several years sailing the world, writing and drinking and getting into trouble. All in all, not a bad line of work.
H.K. Farrell 