It’s always there. The imminent, looming question. It’s at home, school, and work. It follows you to family parties and friend’s houses. Always asked, never quite satisfactorily answered:
“So, what do you want to do with your life?”
I have to admit that I, too, am guilty of being the asker of such a question. The chosen career path of any student says a lot about their personality, and I just find it interesting to know who my friends will become. But it is this question, more than any other, that makes many students shudder.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, about 80 percent of college students change their major at least once. Why is this number so high? The thought process, in my experience, seems to go something like this.
At home, future college students are filling out applications, some with their parents or friends hovering over their shoulder. They talk about the future, they talk about careers and debt and starting salaries and job growth until the student is just about ready to quit all forms of schooling and live in a box. Many students have been nurturing a passion for something throughout high school, be it the theater, languages, teaching, writing, music, art, geology, history, or any other of the noble subjects of study. Some students choose to pursue a career that will allow them to express this passion. Others talk this over with their parents, and by the end of half an hour are thoroughly convinced that the job market is in flames and the only way to avoid starvation is to become a chemical engineer. Either way, each future college student will end up marking down a little section on their college applications indicating their intended major.
What follows is several months of the most dramatic emotional turmoil most of us will ever experience. Acceptance letters start rolling in...or not. There are life-altering successes and earth-shattering defeats. Eventually, each student has selected their institution of choice, and after so much unrest, feels that they know exactly where their future is headed. Throughout the fall semester, this presumption is undeniably turned on its head. Some students realize that although Organic Chemistry is fascinating, they will just never be able to remember what the heck carboxyl groups are. Others spend hours searching for possible career options to fit their major and eventually come to the conclusion that the job they desire cannot be gained through their chosen course of study. Many encounter a revolutionary class or idea which causes much revision of their future plans. Whatever the case, they need something different, and thus they embark on a painful, soul-searching journey full of self doubt and second guessing that eventually leads them to exactly where they need to be.
For me, the process was a little different. I love languages, and language learning, so I began college with the idea of earning a dual degree in Spanish and Intercultural Studies, with the idea of entering the field of TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages). I have not changed my interests, and just last week I officially declared both of these majors. The most common question I get, after I tell people my major, is “Oh great! So what are you going to do with that?” My laboriously thought out answer is, “I have no idea.” I have gone through dozens of career goals in the past 7 months, each just as likely to bring fulfillment to my life. Whether I end up a Latin teacher, Spanish teacher, in TESOL, translating for missionaries or traveling journalists, I know that I will be happy. I am not getting a degree so that I can get a job (although I would really like to have a job). I am earning a degree in these subjects because I long to learn more about them. I am learning to gain knowledge, because I love it. Whatever I become, I’ll do my best.
