A long, meandering post in which I ruminate on life and all it has to offer.
Well, yes and no.
I have learned a lot in the last three years. I've taken classes in history, psychology, literature, communications, science (ew), math, and French. I've got a cumulative 3.06 GPA, which basically means I've scraped by. Some classes didn't teach me anything; I suffered through the boredom and just hoped for the best - which usually meant a B or a C. Some classes were extremely difficult and even after putting in hours of study, I only just scraped by with a C.
And then there were those classes that made me think. They taught me new things, opened my eyes. News Writing was one of those classes; as were Cultures of the Middle East, Old English, and the History of US Intelligence and Espionage. And it was the professors who really influenced what I got out of the lessons. Wonderful people who were passionate about their fields who passed on not just information, but also belief systems, methods of inquiry, a change in view. (Alright, now I sound like the school's course catalog. Great.)
When it comes to my own education, it's a mix of hippie and conservative. I appreciate the time that people have invested in me, and I love the idea of learning new things; but I don't always see their use. When it's the middle of the semester and tests are coming up and I'm frustrated because it take 2 hours to read and translate 10 lines of the Old English version of "The Wanderer," I don't see the point. It's hard to understand how this is going to be useful.
It's moments like that when I need to stop and think about the intangible benefits of knowing this story. It's moments like that when I need to recognize that a future employer, or even I, won't care that I've translated the poem; what they'll care about is the fact that I had the tenacity to do it entirely (without cheating - true story), straight through, and actually enjoy it.
Which brings me to my point.
As an English/Communications major, it's tough to see sometimes where my degrees are going to get me. Who's going to hire an English major? I have no marketable skills! That, I think, is where I'm wrong in thinking. Sure, I'm not going to get hired as a nurse or a physician or a statistician or a lab worker or whatever, but I am going to get hired to do any other number of other jobs, and it's up to me to decide where that will go.
Well originally this post was going to be a kind of personal response to this:
but obviously I've rambled a bit. I'm going into my last year of school and I'm feeling part nervous, part excited. I have 1 job offer already, plus am being recruited (less than enthusiastically - does email count?) by a few companies. I'm going to try to apply to grad schools, so I can have a backup plan/more time to write/postpone my corporate life.
My parents have raised me to believe that hard work leads to success which leads to financial comfort. I'm lucky in that I'm not starting from nothing, exactly: I have the option of running to Mommy and Daddy if all else fails, but I would see that itself as a failure. Yes I'm scared of what's ahead and yes I'm horrible at saving money, but I don't want to be that 24-year-old girl who's still living at home, sending out resumes in the morning and picking my little sister up from school in the afternoon. My parents have made it pretty clear that when I'm done with undergrad, I'm done at home. Sure I'll always have a place to stay if I need one, but only as a last resort: 9 months from now, I am gone.
I guess the point of this post was just to work through a few things in my mind, and to prove that we're not all screwed up and spoiled like Scott Nicholson. I think my generation will have a tough time wading through previous expectations that are heaped on us, whether they're good or bad; and while some of us will have our own expectations that we say "fulfill or else!" to, some of us will be realistic and recognize that you do have to start at the bottom, and there's absolutely no shame in that. Life is the most random series of events, and you have to embrace it that way.
xo
No comments:
Post a Comment