It’s a Tough Time to Be a Writer—But I’m Following My Dream

When I finally figured out that I wanted to pursue journalism, I knew it would be an uphill battle to get my foot in the door

“POV” comprises brief first-person essays by young alumni. Do you have a topic in mind? Email us at cornellians@cornell.edu!

By Finley Williams ’25

When I finally realized how I wanted to spend my career, I had already been sending out applications for two months. I sat in front of my laptop and detailed my strategy to the Cornell professor on the other end.

And as we spoke, I saw for the first time that I’d drawn a winding line with switchbacks and hairpin curves that led from my current post-undergrad life to the profession I had always wanted.

The path on which I’d been slowly plodding would take me through administrative roles at tech policy think tanks.

Finley Williams wearing a red sleeveless blouse in front of flowers

Then, after five or so years, it would bring me to the “X” on the map: lifestyle-sustaining employment as a freelance or magazine journalist, writing news articles and reported essays that critically examine U.S. contemporary culture and politics.

I’d done this work before, professionally and otherwise. My staff page on the Daily Sun’s website listing my arts and culture columns; my Google Drive full of unpublished essays about performative reading and AI slop; my short-term positions at national publications—they all intimated that a real life in writing might be possible.

Finley Williams with the Touchdown live bear statue
The author celebrates her Commencement with the Touchdown bear statue.

But I was still taken aback when the professor responded quickly, with the directness of someone who’d had this conversation before. “If you want to be a writer,” she said, “you should try to be a writer.”

I don’t remember how I responded, or even whether I meant what I said. But the truth was that I had not directly sought to live my vision of what it meant to be a writer—to engage with current events and historical context via reportage and personal experience—simply because I did not think it was possible to succeed.

I was taken aback when the professor responded quickly, with the directness of someone who’d had this conversation before. ‘If you want to be a writer,’ she said, ‘you should try to be a writer.’

This was an implicit assumption, one that had calcified into uninterrogated fact by the time I began applying to jobs after I graduated in December 2025.

Fear and complacency lay between my desire to write and my achievement of that goal—the fear of failure and of the possibility that AI had made writing obsolete; a complacency that said it was better to accept what was within my grasp than to stretch toward a target that seemed out of reach, especially with the unemployment rate for recent college graduates climbing higher.

I left the conversation with tips and ideas for how to write professionally. More importantly, I came away with a renewed clarity about my goals.

I saw that whether I hewed to the ostensibly more attainable expectation of a traditional office job or ventured out as a creative professional, success was not guaranteed; my months of applying to think tanks with no sign of advancement showed me that. If I tried and failed, at least it would be in pursuit of something I loved—and if I pulled it off, the reward would be infinitely sweeter.

Finley Williams holding up a copy of the Cornell Daily Sun
With a Daily Sun front page sporting her byline.

So I changed tack. I committed to trying to build the career I want. Irrespective of AI doom scenarios and the current hiring landscape, I was going to chase reporting and writing roles at publications—large or small, local or national, located anywhere in the U.S.

The process was neither easy nor seamless. It was so rote sometimes that I forgot that I was actually engaged in grasping for something I’d always wanted.

If I tried and failed, at least it would be in pursuit of something I loved—and if I pulled it off, the reward would be infinitely sweeter.

I visited journalism job boards and publishers’ HR pages every day after I clocked out of my summer job coordinating a teen journalism program at Princeton, adding the compelling roles to the ever-lengthening spreadsheet where I tracked my applications.

At times, the work of finding work was even somewhat heartbreaking—like when I made it past the initial screen and first interviews for two separate short-term positions at national outlets, only to be passed over at the end of the writing-test rounds.

Finley Williams reading a book
For Williams, “the work of finding work was even somewhat heartbreaking.”

My unhelpful inclination was to read these rejections as failures, to add the “we regret to inform you” emails to the dossier that held proof of everything I couldn’t achieve.

But I reminded myself that, more than anything, my progression to the third round of these applications was proof of concept. I had extended my hand toward a previously elusive goal and almost touched it. Here was the evidence that it could indeed be reached.

I reminded myself that my progression to the third round of applications was proof of concept. I had extended my hand toward a previously elusive goal and almost touched it.

A few weeks after those rejections, I successfully interviewed for a position at a local paper in New England.

Now, I’m looking forward to being a beat reporter covering socioeconomic changes throughout the state. The role is a building block, little by little adding weight and substance to an aspiration that I had not initially taken seriously.

Now that I can claim the title of reporter, I have to begin the work of being one: cultivating sources as I write five stories per week, while balancing short- and long-term reporting projects and co-leading the paper’s educational program for local high school students.

I hope that when the thing we call failure inevitably befalls me—whether because of job market swings or technological displacement or the customary blips of life—I will keep reaching, and that it will propel me forward.

Chicago native Finley Williams ’25 majored in American studies in Arts & Sciences. She recently moved to New Hampshire to become the growth, development, and population reporter at the Concord Monitor.

(All images provided.)

Published September 24, 2026

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