Carnegie Mellon University

Eleanor Haglund

Eleanor HaglundMajor: Creative Writing
Minor: Psychology
Advisers: Kevin González and Jane McCafferty
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Big Bite

When a college girl joins her campus Emergency Medical Services, she must grow into her position and learn to be comfortable with herself. This coming of age story follows her as she grows into herself while dealing with social pressures. These pressures are compounded by the high-pressure situations she is thrown into in EMS.

My senior thesis will be a novel that follows a college age girl as she grows into herself. I aim to open up a discussion of choices, coming of age, gender and the world of college Emergency Medical Services. To do so, I will write a novel over the summer and first semester of my senior year. I will then rewrite and polish the novel during the second semester of my senior year.

By writing a novel about a young girl in the world of EMS, I hope to examine the gender issues that have plagued the industry. This novel is important to my field because there are few fiction novels that analyze the high-pressure situations college EMS practitioners experience.

Bio

I am a writer, an innovator, a theatre-geek, an activist, a singer, a healer, a daughter, a foodie, a sister, a leader and a friend. I am myself and a combination of those I love.

I was born twenty years ago to two lawyers in Tewksbury, New Jersey. My mother is Cypriot and organizes, leads and takes care of everyone in my entire family-- an enormous responsibility. My father is the most honest person I know and shares my passion for making a lasting difference in the world. My brother is a world champion fencer and one of my best friends.

When I was young, my mother enrolled me in Montessori school. There I learned and grew faster than mint in a garden. The Montessori philosophy is that children are small adults and should be treated as such in social settings and in their education. I learned to speak up for myself and my friends because I understood it was my responsibility to resolve our problems. I also discovered that, because of my freedom, what I learned was up to me to control. Because of this, I developed an avid desire to soak up information. By the time I was in seventh grade, I had read every book in my school’s library. Learning was never a chore; it was something that inspired and excited me.

Because of this type of education, I became a healer. I felt that it was my responsibility to try to help other people resolve the troubles that befell them. The first thing I did when I came to college was become an emergency medical technician in order to directly help my community. I have been able to help and support the members of my college community when they are having seizures, experiencing an overload of stress at school, when they are experiencing physical trauma and when many other issues arise. I feel proud of my contributions to my community because I can see how progress can be made through the actions of a focused and committed group of people.

In my free time, I enjoy cooking multi-cultural foods and going to see theatre with my friends. I inherited my love of food from my mother and have been learning new techniques and recipes to build up my knowledge of cooking. What I love most about cooking is the way that it brings people together to share their experiences. In that way, food is my way of uniting new people and spending time with people I love. I also enjoy going to shows with my friends. I love the way that theatre is able to talk about deep, serious issues in a way that the audience will be receptive and open to, either through comedy or deep involvement in the narrative. I always treasure the long discussions I have with my friends after we see a show.

I am a combination of all of the people I have met and the experiences I have had. I am a writer, a speaker and a listener.

Support this Project
Read Eleanor's blog