The journey to West Virginia University for Whit Arnold took him through Ohio, Los Angeles and South Korea before landing in Morgantown.
An aspiring stand-up comedian, Arnold moved to Los Angeles after graduating from Muskingum University with bachelor’s degrees in English and business. He worked in daytime television for several years, trying to make his big break writing for “Saturday Night Live.” But that dream didn’t go according to plan.
“I wasn’t very good on stage. I would get nervous and wasn’t funny at all — it was horrible,” he said. “I quickly realized that comedy probably wasn’t the best career path for my skillset.”
Wanting a fresh start and a broader worldview, Arnold moved to South Korea to teach English. He fell in love with teaching and taught people of all ages, from young children to middle school students and adults.
“That was a really good experience in terms of developing my teaching background,” Arnold said. “I think all teachers should have to teach young children because then they are aware of the attention spans that students may have.”
Arnold also continued to hone his writing while abroad.
“When I was in undergrad, a writer gave me some advice. He discouraged me from pursuing an MFA unless I continued writing,” Arnold said. “I took six years off between undergrad and grad school, and I proved to myself that I was serious enough to continue writing. At that point, I was ready to get the MFA. With my teaching background and experiences in Korea, I had things to write about, cultural things to comment on.”
“In writing, it is so important to think about perspective and how your reader is reading the words that you’ve put on the page and whether or not they are understanding them correctly. I think that having the ability to view a problem from multiple perspectives helps enormously in technical careers.”
Whit Arnold
That’s when Arnold began researching MFA programs. He decided on WVU at the recommendation of several peers and from WVU faculty in his writing circle.
“WVU was definitely the best fit for me,” Arnold said. “You get teaching experience, a stipend and freedom with more time to write. I liked that it was a three-year program instead of two because of that added flexibility.”
Today, Arnold is a product support specialist for the technology company Rakuten OverDrive, which creates apps for borrowing e-books, audiobooks and videos from public libraries. He uses the communication skills he gained from the MFA to interface with customers and developers.
“I interact with our major customers and talk with them about things that are happening with our developers. Our developers speak a different language. I have to speak the language of our developers, and I have to communicate between our major library partners and back and forth,” Arnold said. “That sounds boring, but that correspondence is complicated and technical. By studying writing in the way that I did for the MFA and by becoming a better writer, I am able to communicate concisely and clearly complicated ideas, but in a language that anyone can understand.”
Arnold also relies on the critical thinking skills he gained from the MFA every day.
“I can problem-solve accordingly to figure out solutions or connect with people who can help me. I can figure out what questions to ask to help solve a problem or get closer to an answer. My ability to interrogate a problem from multiple angles has been helpful. I get that from writing,” Arnold said.
“In writing, it is so important to think about perspective and how your reader is reading the words that you’ve put on the page and whether or not they are understanding them correctly. I think that having the ability to view a problem from multiple perspectives helps enormously in technical careers.”
Arnold’s humanities background has also helped him adapt to the culture of a technology company.
“Because of my background in English and as a writer, I view the world through philosophy and the human experience. It’s odd for me to be in a tech environment surrounded by software engineers and data scientists every day,” Arnold said.
“My ability to learn technology, to collect and manipulate data in Excel and use that to illustrate information visually has been unexpected. I didn’t expect to enjoy diving into a spreadsheet and cleaning up data. I didn’t expect to enjoy hanging out with developers and talking with them about the tools we use to create products. I didn’t see this for my future. I thought I was going to be on SNL.”
I thought I was going to be a famous comedian. Now, I’m in this tech world that I never saw myself in. What I enjoy the most is how surprising it has been for what I expected my career path would be.”