Isadora Kleiman

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

ABOUT ISADORA KLEIMAN

By eighteen, I knew that I loved to write. I slotted into UCSB’s campus culture as an English major after following my high school teachers’ advice. But something was missing. Courses filled up quickly freshman year, so I was left with slim pickings. I figured that I’d take an art history survey class that covered everything from the ruins of Göbeklitepe in Turkey to the Parthenon in Greece. One Wednesday morning, when I was sitting in a five-hundred-person lecture on the Temple of the Karnak in Egypt, it hit me. It started in my stomach, leapt into my heart, and clicked in my mind: I was feeling wonder. I immediately declared my new major to be art history. I learned that I didn’t have to whisper about art like we’re taught to do in museum spaces; my professors wanted me to shout. They showed me that art is a window to the world and a mirror to the soul. But most importantly, they taught me not only how to think about art but how to write about it. I began studying communication in order to help people share their ideas with honesty, hope, and humor. My courses—from marketing to argumentation—strengthened my sense of wonder. And via my communication research and my role as a peer advisor for UCSB’s College of Letters and Science, I learned how to listen actively and share openly. The core of communication is intention, and I know how to choose words wisely. My friends saw my writing flourish before I did. Suddenly, I became my roommates’ in-house essay editor. I didn’t mind at all; in fact, I loved it. I thought that everybody enjoyed breaking down grammar and punctuation rules––it turns out that I was sorely mistaken. During my senior year at UCSB, I threw myself into the Professional Writing Minor. I was determined to take my editing skills out of the dorm room. My copyediting course might as well have hit me over the head with a sign that said, “You know nothing about editing.” Boy, did I need that! After months of building my editing foundation from scratch, I landed an internship editing The Public Historian. And after climbing mountains of manuscripts—leaving countless comments along the way—I can confidently say that there’s no shortage of wonder within the editing world. My undergraduate experience culminated in completing my art history honors thesis, “Pilgrimage to the Whitney Plantation: A Place of Ritual.” This project was the product of my multifaceted writing education. As I continue to follow wonder wherever it takes me, I’ll ground myself in gratitude for that Wednesday-morning, five-hundred-person lecture from freshman year.