Brendan McGovern has long been a legend at the Writers Workshop–particularly among WRIT 300 students: his research poster hangs in the hallway to the Workshop, and his papers have been used as examples of class assignments. After graduating from Illinois in May 2021, he went on to join the Teach for America corps in Chicago, where he taught sixth-grade English and ran an after-school writing center for his ELL students at Neal Math and Science Academy in North Chicago. He is now a law student at the University of Virginia, where he recently was selected for the editorial board of the Virginia Law Review.
Brendan majored in English and political science at the University of Illinois and joined the Writers Workshop in spring of his freshman year when he started volunteering before becoming a peer consultant as a sophomore. He says his time here taught him a lot of transferable soft skills, and he recommends that every consultant “take advantage of the multiple opportunities that the Writers Workshop offers. So I had the chance to engage in professor-led research, independent research [check out his Praxis article here], present at a research symposium, attend conferences. I grew so much in terms of my interests, my writing skills, public speaking, and those were all incredibly helpful as I progressed throughout undergrad and life immediately after graduation. And those soft skills are incredibly impactful regardless of the career that you pick.”
His favorite part of being a consultant with the Writers Workshop was getting to meet and connect with students from across campus and of different grade levels. He says, “I formed really amazing relationships with a lot of writers and got the chance to learn about their interests and passions in engineering and business and help them work both on their academic pieces and a lot of their professional writing, like cover letters and resumes.”
His time at the Workshop helped shape his path after graduation and beyond: “I think I didn’t realize until after I graduated how much my time as a consultant and the work that I did with the other consultants, Dr. Wisniewski, the graduate students, really helped me grow personally and professionally. I credit all the work that I’ve done with the Writers Workshop to the beginning of my career as a teacher, as somebody who’s interested in education, law and policy, and it gave me a really clear path for what I wanted to do.” Looking to the future, Brendan plans to work in education policy. We look forward to cheering him on.
By Elizabeth Scherschel, Classics major, History and Anthropology minors, senior (Class of 2025)