Frank Ahrens is one of those people that make any possibility seem achievable. A mechanical engineer who wrote a business column for the Washington Post for 18 years, then moved to South Korea where he became the Vice President of Public Relations for Hyundai. He is a man who has done many things and has been many places. He has lived a life of opportunity that many college students can only dream of, let alone think is possible.
Ahrens recently spoke at West Virginia University for the Reed College of Media and the College of Business and Economics. He began his speak by explaining that his father wanted him to be an engineer, and like many other students he wasn’t sure of what he wanted to do so he pursued mechanical engineering. He finished his undergrad in something he didn’t care too much for— something he had no passion for.
This thought stuck with me after the speech, as it probably would any freshman college student. Do any of us really know what we want to do? Some adults don’t even know what they want to do when they grow up. How could an 18 or 19-year-old decide? The first time I was ever asked what I wanted to study in college, I was in the sixth grade. Which leads me to quote journalist Courtney E. Martin, “We need to stop asking kids, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ and start asking them, ‘How do you want to be when you grow up?’”
Ahrens then goes on to talk about how in his last year of his undergrad, he started taking pictures for the Daily Athenaeum. He fell in love with the newsroom spirit and soon started writing columns for the paper. He decided to go to grad school and soon became the Editor-in-Chief of the DA, which he still claims as one of his most satisfying achievements. After running out of money for his tuition, Ahrens managed to land a job with the Washington Post. He worked his way up to write in the business column. After 18 years of work put into the Post and a literal diplomatic wife, they moved to Korea where he got a Public Relations job at Hyundai. A mechanical engineer who found his passion in writing, and then in his family.
Throughout his speech, Ahrens spoke about “finding your thing.” He says, “Your thing may come to you at an early age, in the middle of your life, or maybe towards the end of your life, but when you find it pursue it.”
How many students go to college for a job or for money, and how many go to find their passion?
Ahrens’ story is much more interesting at full length, and he has a coming-of-age book in stores right now – Seoul Man: A Memoir of Cars, Culture, Crisis, and Unexpected Hilarity Inside a Korean Corporate Titan.
