Hey, welcome to my first-ever blog! I am Marzia—part engineer and part writer, but a full-time yapper. Stick around—it might get messy, but it’ll be fun!!
My childhood was filled with countless ferry rides from my city to my grandma’s house. As the ferry cut through the gloomy water, I would always stare at the buildings along the shore. They didn’t seem just like structures—they seemed like interesting designs. I would spend the entire time staring at them, the windows, the colors, the shapes, the balconies, and the way they stood next to the water. Sometimes, I would even take wild guesses about the materials used or the money spent on building them, and at other times, I would be too busy wondering how the design could have been better.
It wasn’t long before I started experimenting on my own. On my eighth birthday, my parents gifted me a Lego set. It was more than a toy to me; it was a door to my imagination. I was building hundreds of buildings in a day, experimenting with each one. Each structure was a new challenge—could it be taller, stronger in the base, and more color-oriented? Every time I finished one, I would run around the house to show off my masterpiece. When I was done being showered with compliments, I would take it apart and start over, hoping to come up with a design even more intriguing.
The more I built, the more I began to believe that I could be an engineer. And the more I believed, the stronger my desire to be one became. So I did everything I could to be an even better engineer. The math geek that I was, I tried to skip every basic arithmetic lesson and dive into the math involved in making real buildings.
As a full-on math nerd, I used to hate writing. But when COVID-19 hit and I was stuck at home with the same three people every day, I started to go a little crazy. That’s when I was struck with a shocking desire to journal. I wanted to write down everything I was doing in the day as if I was going to suffer from memory loss the next day. I still don’t know why.
The more I wrote about my days, I more I discovered that damn I can write?!?! I would try to be poetic and use insanely long formal words to describe simple things. Instead of writing “I took a sip from my cup of coffee,” I would try to write some ridiculous, thing as “I delicately sipped from my cup of coffee, allowing the warmth and bitter aroma to settle before continuing with my thoughts.” Before I knew it, I was writing stories, editing them, and proofreading them.
As the days of the lockdown extended, my writing habit turned into a ritual I couldn’t live without. The engineer in me couldn’t believe it: I was falling in love with writing. When my works finally got published in physical books, I knew I couldn’t turn my back on writing anymore.
Just like that, my dream of being an engineer expanded—I wanted to be a writer too.
Funny how the worst times can bring out parts of you that might’ve stayed hidden. Without COVID, I don’t know if I would’ve ever met the writer in me. I was so set on being an engineer, I never even thought about writing. But when everything shut down and the world got quiet, I had nothing but time and thoughts. Writing became my way of making sense of it all. What started as something to pass the time turned into something I loved. Now, I am someone with two dreams, two passions, and two identities.
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By Marzia Seemat
Marzia Seemat is a sophomore at NYU studying civil engineering and creative writing. She loves being close to nature, especially at the beach. Her favorite things include good food, morning tea, hour-long movies, and spending time with the people she loves.
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Tags: engineering, food, identity, passion, writing