Meet Our Instructors: Rahul Jakati

Major: Writing Seminars

Year: Senior

What has teaching writing taught you about your own writing?

Writing is like a mechanical pencil—every so often you have to mess around with it—injecting yourself with graphite needles, pushing the lead back into the chuck— just to make sure you understand how it works. Students are more plastic than us hard-headed adults, and their creative innocence constantly reminds you of how consummately flexible the art of writing is and how arbitrary the rules we take for granted—you must follow this grammatical structure! You must never use an adverb!—really are in the pursuit of personal expression.

What surprises you about teaching for WBS?

I am constantly amazed by students’ enthusiasm and unique sources of inspiration. I had one student who wrote about the abandoned houses and junk yards he explores in his free time, as well the many strange pieces of salvage he was able to recover (such as a whole boat!), while another wrote about the zany world of social media influencing. We live in a world where ideas are more accessible than ever, and seeing students take full advantage of that panoply in unexpected ways is one of the great joys of WBS.

What are some things you love?

I love having conversations with people whom I will never meet again. They always tend to say something interesting within the safety net of imminent anonymity.

What is something you taught yourself to do?

I taught myself how to do an in and out crossover in the living room of my house. The basketball landed in my mother’s cooking, so she threw me out.