“So what’s next?”
These three words are ones that any recent grad hears more often than they’d probably prefer. They’re typically bombarded with that dreaded question as they run into friends they haven’t seen in a while, family at a family gathering, and even strangers they meet in passing. All that to say, it can be stressful as a 20-something young adult being thrown into the big vast world with nothing but a college degree, especially for those of us with a degree in the arts.
I graduated from Azusa Pacific University with a Bachelor in Fine Arts, in Cinema Production. The expectation for my classmates and I is often to go through school, find our niche within the grand world of cinema, graduate, and engage in freelance work that will connect us to the people who will land us a high-paying job in Hollywood. I will admit that going into college as a naive 18-year-old, I expected this. I expected to pay my time working on numerous non-paying freelance sets, climbing the ladder until I could make it as a PA making coffee runs for production crews. Little Alexia was thrilled to undergo this journey. However, what little Alexia didn’t realize were the numerous other paths a filmmaker and creative could take to kick start her career. I was fortunate enough to have the privilege of graduating high school simultaneously with my high school diploma and Associate's Degree, which allowed me the opportunity to complete my bachelor's in just two years rather than the typical four. I had really felt drawn to complete my degree in three years as a chance to explore the realm of cinema just a bit more to “find my niche.” And that is exactly what happened in that third year.
The summer before my last year at APU I went on a short-term mission trip to Athens, Greece through my college’s discipleship office. To say the least, that trip wrecked me in all the best ways and changed my trajectory of where I would be going post-grad. My team and I engaged with a variety of ministries, which was extremely eye-opening for someone who had never stepped into a ministry setting before. Leaving Athens I found that the women of the Athens red light district were laid heavily on my heart. I just remember going through the airport and boarding my plane back to the States thinking, “I’ll be back. God isn’t finished with me here.”
As I returned to the States and went about processing all that I had encountered overseas and prepared to begin my senior year, I couldn’t help but think about what would be coming post-grad. I knew I desired to tell people’s stories through a visual medium, but I could also feel my heart breaking more and more for the trafficked women in Athens. These two things seemed to have no correlation, and I was just left confused every time I sat and pondered. One of the days I found myself pondering my future, I recalled a conversation I had with a current missionary in Athens about a program that APU does called GAP Years. The purpose of GAP Years is to provide graduating college students the opportunity to step out into the mission field immediately post-grad while removing the barrier of great student loans. I remembered this and decided it was worth it to go to an info meeting at the very least. That info meeting was the moment I realized that my degree in cinema could be used overseas within marginalized communities– like the women in the red light district my heart had been breaking for. It was revolutionary in my post-grad search.
GAP Years connected me with GoCorps to help me find the perfect placement for me, my major, and my heart. The GoCorps staff then came beside me and so intentionally helped me figure out where I would be the best fit and where the Lord was leading me. Finding the Ethical Storytelling position in Athens marked every box for the job I was seeking post-grad and felt like such a clear answer from the Lord that this was the path I was supposed to be on. Fast forward to now, I’m living in the post-grad life preparing to spend the first two years of my career living in Athens learning the culture and language, all while using my degree to create awareness of the tragedy that lies within the Athens red light district through storytelling. Thank you to GoCorps for helping me open my eyes to how I can use my degree overseas for the Kingdom! All the glory to God!