By Ryan Greenberg
After over six hours on the phone, and more information than I knew what to do with, Leith Harmon and I said our goodbyes and went on with our days. I interviewed her in February to learn more about cryptocurrency and the role it has to play in the future of the economy. And she had plenty to share with me.
Leith Harmon is the Chief Financial Planner for Counsel Fiduciary, a registered investment advisor firm in New York. She is also my aunt.
Leith Harmon, left, and her nephew Ryan Greenberg, a UC Santa Barbara journalism student, in Chicago 16 years before she was interviewed by him for a course.
Shortly after concluding our phone call, I realized that was the first time I had talked to my aunt in months; we still haven’t seen each other in person since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Busy college students don’t often have the opportunity to reconnect with family, so I made sure to make the most of this time.
While interviewing my aunt, however, I noticed an intersection between my prospective career path and my family, two aspects of my life that are of paramount importance to me. This intersection was presented to me in UC Santa Barbara’s “Journalism and News Writing” course. I have long considered a career in journalism, and I was excited to finally learn my first lessons to bridge my future career with my present goals.
I saw my aunt as not only family but an opportunity to work on my craft as a student of journalist writing.
I decided to spend the winter researching and writing pieces about cryptocurrency, and for my finale, I wrote a feature article about the role cryptocurrency has to play in the future of the global economy.
Remembering how Leith had bought Bitcoin for me all the way back in June 2017 (before Bitcoin was cool), and considering her background as a professional financial adviser, I knew I had to interview her for my article.
When I called her on the phone, we spent the next several hours conversing as family members who have catching up to do, but also as one professional interviewing another for work.
Leith taught me how the history of the U.S. dollar has led to the rise of gold, which has also led to the rise of cryptocurrency as a counter-response. She provided me with so much information that only after the interview did my article take shape and direction.
Perhaps because she is family, I began to take a professional approach so naturally and a wave of confidence coursed through me. Never before had I felt so affirmed that I was pursuing the career meant for me.
During my freshman year at UC Santa Barbara, I changed majors from pre-biology to Communication but still struggled with finding ambivalence about pursuing a career meant for me.
Once I interviewed Leith, however, I felt confident that what I was doing was right for me. This winter, I produced writing that I’m very proud of and the journalism class has been my favorite course to date at UC Santa Barbara.
That course spurred me to pursue the journalism track in the Professional Writing minor offered at UC Santa Barbara and I look forward to taking the other journalism courses the Writing Program offers until I graduate to pursue a career in journalism. And to think that my future career began to take shape with something as simple as a phone call to connect with family.
Ryan Greenberg is a student at UC Santa Barbara who studies Communication and Professional Writing. He wrote this article for his Writing Program course Digital Journalism.