Hello world, welcome to the beginning of the journey! As the website says, my name is Jess Shotwell. I am from New Jersey and a junior at Liberty University studying Strategic Communications with a minor in Digital Media. Interesting fact about me, I am an only child, so if you ever want to talk to me about that, feel free to message me down below 😊
I grew up in a musical family, so I love to sing! I performed in high school choir and sang in musicals. Although I am traditionally a soprano, the two high school choir directors that I went through loved to place me in the alto section because of my sight reading skills. We used to be able to wear formal black attire to performances but then had to switch to green robes (My high school colors were green and white). I also used to love singing in karaoke but I haven’t been to a karaoke in a while.
I also used to be an actress! I decided to step down from acting after a bad experience from my sophomore year in high school and not having other good options, but I do miss it though! My favorite role was playing the Wicked Witch of the West in Stephen Mugglin’s “Yellow Brick Road”. Outside of that role, I was only able to get smaller roles, but my other acting credits include “Guys and Dolls”, “Cinderella”, “Pinocchio”, “Snow White”, “Peter Pan”, “The Three Musketeers”, and “You’re Driving Me Crazy!”. You might not be surprised to hear this if you read the home page to its entirety, but yes, I was casted as a mission girl in “Guys and Dolls”. The director did not know about my faith when casting me, but I like to think it was just simply because of my personality, and everyone always likes to ask me that question whenever I tell them that I participated in that musical.
So after reading all of this, you might be wondering why I chose to study Strategic Communications and Digital Media in college instead of music or theatre. The consequence of growing up in a musical family and having been pressured to join school bands for reputation, it created a desire to be my own person and develop skills outside of the performing arts. I did participate in half of a marching band season my freshman year before dropping out due to circumstances and was unable to join sophomore year. I never continued chorus or theatre in college, and ultimately decided to try new things and learn new skills so I wasn’t just a “performing arts kid”. I also don’t have a sense of rhyme, which automatically disqualifies me from trying to follow my father’s footsteps in becoming a music teacher. After being suggested by my father’s friend to try communications, I took a leap of faith and am grateful to say that I’m happy in this major, praise the Lord!
As for Digital Media, well I was having a career coaching appointment at school asking for guidance about my degree my freshman year. Since I still didn’t know what I wanted to do in my life, I decided to give myself an extra study to go experiment around with that was still related to my major, because why not 😂 I volunteered time with Liberty University’s radio station 90.9 The Light FM as a news reporter, commercial speaker, and a social media coordinator, and fell in love with digital media. I also used to compete in Forensics speech my sophomore year and am now a member in American Marketing Association. Stay tuned for future posts about these experiences!
I’m taking this time in college to expand on new skills and hobbies since all I’ve known is performing arts previously. In this blog, I’ll be talking about my personal life, my life advice to readers, and my travels since I have traveled a lot with my family throughout my life. Stay tuned for more content from me!
