Hope Road

More than almost anything else, change and transition have defined the last three years of my life. It comes with the territory of being a college student, I guess. It doesn’t help that I transferred schools after my freshman year, either. And I like it, usually. I tend to feel trapped if my daily routine is monotonous and unchanging. But it’s a strange dichotomy, because that kind of routine is also my safety net, my comfort zone - something I often don’t appreciate until it changes again.

Yet overall I like all the changes that have taken place in my life over the past three years, even though I’ve said what feels like thousands of goodbyes, more than in my entire previous life put together!

I just got back from my first trip to a foreign country ever, where I spent a month of the summer, and in two weeks I’ll be heading back to college again. I must admit that I hate packing and moving, and I’m not looking forward to getting all my possessions sorted through and ready for another trip back to school. But I am so excited to see all of my friends again, to set up the apartment, and to get back into classes (which include way too many public speaking assignments this semester, but that’s another story).

But the biggest change of all is looming ahead, ominous and beckoning at the same time - graduation. It’s less than nine months away! Right now, that’s just far enough away for me to be excited, but not nervous. And for the next two weeks or so, while I’m working full-time at the daycare and enjoying the last snippets of summer, I’m not really doing anything to prepare for it. Once I get back to school, I need to start seriously researching grad schools and post-college job options. I don’t want to be hitting April of the spring semester and wondering what on earth I’m going to do two months from then. And I don’t want to simply move back home and work in the daycare for another summer, that’s for sure.

I’m so excited about all of the opportunities I have. My only worry right now is that I’m not even aware of all the possibilities that are open to me. I’m thinking about grad school, like I wrote, and there are other considerations that narrow my choices to some extent, but there are still so many things I could do. I don’t know how I’m going to choose among them!

This is a weird place for me to be in. Before college, I pretty much knew where I wanted to go to college and what I wanted to study. Even my decision to transfer was a pretty quick process. I’m used to making snap decisions about all of these things. But that’s no longer possible, and I don’t even have a very good idea of what I want to do yet. It’s just strange. But it’s good. I’m enjoying it, which surprises me.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Filed under: Career/Education, My Life on August 9th, 2007