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How do I get rid of all this baggage and start a real career in journalism?

I'm 24 and have been trying to start a career for a few years now, but haven't quite produced anything professionally significant. When I was 20 I dropped out of college because of some severe personal frustrations and problems, but I restarted college from zero when I was 22. So now I'm a junior and have 2 more years to go till graduation. OK so here's the deal. I studied a bit of business management, European studies, communication, and philosophy. What I had really wanted to study was music, theater, and law; but I had graduated from high school prematurely and didn't have enough time to make important decisions based on what I really loved in my heart--I went through my teen and early twenties mostly being dictated by someone else who thought they knew better than I do, but nothing turned out as planned. I have lived in 5 countries, 4 continents, and traveled even more. Between ages 19-21 I have worked as a marketing agent for an insurance company, but I hated the job, wasn't very successful, and barely made any money. In 2011 I will graduate, with a bachelor's degree in Performing Arts Communication. I currently have a 3.68 GPA, but I think my university program is messed up because I'm barely learning anything useful in communication and performing arts to prepare me for the professional world. I want to be a freelance journalist and establish a reputation in magazines like TimeOut, Esquire, Maxim, and Reader's Digest. The only thing I'm good at is writing. I would've been a good stage performer too, but I didn't get a chance to develop my singing, acting, and music skills because when I was younger, I was busy doing other things that I thought was more "productive". But now that I didn't get to develop what I thought I would have loved, I often run out of stuff to write about. When I write, I write about my relationships and my thoughts, and I have quite a following among my friends and acquaintances. But I have trouble writing more "marketable" subjects that are less personal, like music and entertainment. I would have loved to write about travel, hang out spots, history, and culture, because these are not difficult subjects to write about. But it's the gaining the experience to write about that may cost a lot--I would have to spend lots of money traveling, hanging out, taking adventurous expedition trips, interviewing people, and watching performances. I consider myself a generalist: I know a lot of things on the surface, and I can talk about them elaborately and articulately. But I don't really know anything in depth, so most of the time I feel underqualified to do anything I actually love doing. I don't study deep, I study broad. I'm just a good speaker and I avoid looking ignorant at all costs. Consequently, people think I'm smarter than I really am; but once I earn the responsibility I get clueless as to how to sustain it and drive it further because I simply don't know enough and don't know what to do about it. And then I disappoint myself and others. Last year I was about to start working as a lecturer assistant at my campus for a subject I absolutely hated, but I had a plan and was going to find a way to network my way into the job I wanted in a different industry. Well, I gave up the job offer to start a business with an investor from an industry totally different from the one we're going into. They ended up ditching me with all the dirty work, and now our business is going nowhere. Now I'm about to put the business on hold and focus on working as a freelance journalist while I figure things out. I'm just sick and tired of finding that there's always something wrong with me. People keep telling me that I'll be fine and that there's always room at the top in the professional world for someone like me, but I'm about to hit my mid 20's and I don't have anything to show yet and I don't know where I'm going. I'm getting married in 2 years--my to-be-husband is a junior lawyer with a good salary, but I think my career has more to do with my self esteem than it does with money (because there are some spending habits we slightly disagree on, so I think it would be much better for our relationship if we could budget basic necessities on his salaries and leisurely spending from mine... plus we'd have more disposable money to save and invest too). Besides, I surely didn't go through all that expensive education just to stay home and do a stack of ironing! I've a brain that could bless others; i don't want it to be an itch I cannot scratch! OK, so based on that, what are some strengths I can build on that would make me professionally distinct from other professionals? Where should I start selling myself? Which expectations of mine are realistic, and what can I do to bring my dreamy ones down to earth? What can I do to produce the quality of work required in order to associate with brands like TimeOut and Esquire, or other media of equal prestige? How do I ensure that this plan wou

Public Comments

1. you can start by going to college.