AllBright Australia's Managing Editor Gemma Dawkins teaches us that life has a way of putting us exactly where we are supposed to be. Here, she shares her unlikely path to becoming a journalist.

We’ve all heard the jokes about Arts degrees. ‘Do something you’ll love and you’ll never work a day in your life...literally’. Although the statistics in Australia suggest that punchline is actually quite inaccurate, I took it one step further and enrolled myself in a Fine Arts Degree, majoring in the not-so-highly employable field of Dance. For context, in 2020 a woeful in the UK were employed as dancers and choreographers. But as a twenty year old with creative overdrive and stars in my eyes, career prospects were the least of my worries. I loved to dance. I couldn’t imagine not doing it. I was happy to live on the smell of an oily rag if it meant doing what I loved, and the future seemed very far away, anyway.

It’s been 11 years since I wore a silly hat and proudly accepted the certificate I’d dedicated three years of blood, sweat and tears to (mostly sweat).  And although I can’t even remember the last time I set foot in a dance studio, I don’t regret my choice of degree for a second.

Today, I spend my days pursuing my other passion - writing - despite having no formal qualifications. And although I couldn’t see the path at the time, looking back, I can see exactly how my hours in the studio got me here.

The long, long hours taught me discipline and dedication. We were in the studio warming up at 7am on a Monday morning, walking home in the dark at 10pm, high on the adrenaline of performing. My training taught me that the work is done when it’s finished, and not when the clock strikes 5.30pm.

My peers taught me collaboration and communication. We learned to lean on each other through sheer exhaustion, to work together to lift the energy on stage, and to find the fun in the slog. You can’t dance in unison with someone trying to do a solo, so we learned how to be a team.

Dance taught me a level of attention to detail that now drives me mad. Hours spent drilling the same sequence over and over, perfecting the placement of a finger, the line of a shoulder, the pin-pointing of your eyeline - turns out, it never goes away (just ask my partner after he’s misguidedly attempted to stack the dishwasher). 

As I memorised choreography, hit my spot, nailed a quick change, and found my light, I learned multitasking, project management, and how to work under pressure. And it taught me to be open to criticism, to see feedback as a gift, and know that no matter how well you may have done something, you can always do it better.

Above all, my degree taught me that if you’re going to do something, you should do it with your all. You can’t do a dance degree without it consuming your entire life. You can’t give anything but your whole self to it, all in, all the time. So when a company I worked for tasked me with writing a quick facebook post to our staff with some event details, I did the only thing I knew how to. I went all in. Someone noticed - when you’re composing a perfunctory facebook post like it’s a work of art, there’s clearly a frustrated writer in there. And because workplaces would always prefer to hire someone they know and trust, my first writing job landed in my lap. No one asked to see my degree, or call a reference. I was lucky, absolutely, but this pattern has repeated itself enough for me to feel sure that there’s something to it.

So when I found myself elbow deep in my wardrobe recently, and pulled out my framed degree, still in its wrapper, I didn’t see a waste. Brick by brick, skill by skill, that degree set me on a winding, at times overgrown, path that led me to the job I hadn’t even started dreaming of. There were sacrifices, of course. But would I trade my memories? Dancing in the swampy heat in China, the air heavy and full? Performing in a repurposed Church in Spain, the floorboards creaking under our feet? The sound of the audience’s breath, in the moment before the lights go up? Nope. I don’t regret it for a moment.

Well, except when I look at my Superannuation balance. I look forward to retiring from my dream job when I’m about 96.