In two to four sentences, describe your post-Biola work/life journey.

After graduating from Biola, I received an MA in English from Cal State Long Beach University before successfully applying to the University of Notre Dame for admission into their Ph.D. program in English, which I completed in six years. Following a two-year post-doc appointment at UC Berkeley, I was hired in a tenure-track position at UCLA where I have remained for the past eight years.

What's your current occupation, and in what ways did getting a degree in English prepare you for your job?

My current occupation is Assistant Professor of English in the field of British Romanticism. I owe everything to the Biola English department for preparing me for the arduous intellectual journey I undertook many years ago to finally arrive at my dream job of teaching literature at the college and university level. More than anything else, the English department fostered intellectual curiosity, encouraged critical thinking, and reinforced the compatibility of a Christian worldview with academic pursuits.

What was a favorite class or experience you had while a Biola English major?

Without question, my favorite class was a British Romanticism course I took with Professor Lyle Smith in my Junior year. Only three people had signed up for the class, but both dropped before the semester was set to begin. That only left me. Instead of canceling the class, Professor Smith simply arranged for us to meet in his office instead of a classroom and conducted the class as a seminar rather than a lecture course. By mid-semester, I had already completed all of the readings on the syllabus at which point Professor Smith and I began to explore even more Romantic-era texts. This was truly my first graduate-level experience which I concluded with a thirty-five-page research paper that set me on a path to study and teach British Romanticism as my career choice.

What about life after college was most surprising to you?

What surprised me most about life after college was how prepared I was to handle the next phase in my life. When I began applying to graduate schools, I was nervous that my education within the Biola bubble had not prepared me enough to compete at the highest levels of academic work. I was dead wrong. At UCLA, I rarely have the opportunity to foster close professional relationships with any of my students. Due to large class sizes and the University’s preference for research over teaching, a large percentage of students coast through their programs without ever getting to know their professors. As a result, many students lack the preparation that mentorship alone can provide when figuring out the next step in one’s career. At Biola, the best part of my education by far was the initiation of a lifelong relationship with Professors who have remained invested in my success, none more so than Professor Virginia Doland. My indebtedness to her mentorship and friendship knows no bounds.

What advice would you give to a current Biolan majoring in English? Or what's something you did in college that later helped you professionally?

My advice to students majoring in English at Biola is to remember that you are being adequately prepared to succeed in the world beyond the bubble. When I was a student at Biola, I did not always feel that all majors did so. To study literature is to study human nature. In this way, the English major allows us to probe the depths of God’s creation in a way that prepares us to be in the world though we know we are not of it.

What are you reading?

I am currently reading The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789) by the eponymous subject of that autobiography and Felicia Hemans’s The Siege of Valencia (1823), a dramatic poem about a father who must sacrifice his children to save his country and the mother who refuses to submit to the masculine codes of chivalry that even make such a choice a matter for consideration.