Education Quote by Sarah Zettel

There’s a blunt finality to “left formal education behind” that does more cultural work than the credential-flex of “BA in Communications.” Zettel isn’t just locating herself on a resume; she’s drawing a line between two regimes of legitimacy: institutional training and the messier, self-directed apprenticeship that actually produces writers. The first clause reassures gatekeepers. The second quietly shrugs them off.

The wording is telling. “Formal education” is a carefully limited target, not learning itself. It implies she kept studying, but on her own terms: reading voraciously, writing badly, revising obsessively, chasing feedback wherever it could be found. That’s a familiar authorial origin story, but Zettel’s version is notably unromantic. No rhapsodic “the world became my classroom,” just a clean exit, as if she’s describing switching jobs.

Context matters here: a BA in Communications is both practical and culturally sidelined, often treated as “useful” but not “serious” in the way literature or MFA programs are mythologized. By naming it plainly, she refuses the insecurity that can cling to that degree, while also refusing the idea that a writer’s authority must be certified by higher and higher credentials.

The subtext is a small critique of professionalized creativity. In an era when education can feel like an endless subscription model (more degrees, more debt, more networking), Zettel frames stopping as an intentional act, not a failure of ambition. The intent lands as permission: you can be educated, and still choose the off-ramp.