I have been writing for the Quad pretty consistently since I transferred to West Chester last fall. Though the majority of my articles have fairly optimistic undertones, sometimes writing an article each week feels like quite an added load on top of the due dates, textbook chapters, and study sessions I already swim through each week. In fact, some weeks, I have a little difficulty finding inspiration. You guessed it, this week was one of them.
While I tried and tried to contemplate what to write about this week, I looked back through the tired files on my old and overly abused Asus laptop. I navigated through photos of my summer retreats and over 2,000 iTunes tracks to a very special folder labeled, “Quad Articles.” I guess in a way I was searching for inspiration, though a part of me was honestly just hoping to stumble across something already written to quickly tweak into some kind of poor excuse for an article. What I found was over a year of my own scattered thoughts and ambitions ranging from a review of the zombie love story, “Warm Bodies,” to my more recent political rants that would surely make my poor conservative folks back home in Perry County wonder where exactly they went wrong.
Looking through the files, I realized that in a way they are a running record of my career interests through college. Majoring in communications doesn’t exactly narrow down the career field. When I chose the major, all I really knew was that I like to write, and was too scared to narrow it down to just journalism. After my first semester here, I had some real solid prospects: public relations, advertising, broadcasting, and a few others seemed like awesome careers that I might aim for down the line. My second semester here, I got a pretty cool internship and started feeling like I was all smart in the realm of politics, and was sure that would be my calling. Now, in my third and last semester here, I look ahead to graduation in December and somehow I feel utterly back to square one. All I really know is that I like to write.
I’ve been spending a lot of time feeling rather pessimistic about all of this lately, and during a recent trip home, I brought my troubles to where they are dealt with best: good old Mom and Dad. I thought for sure that if I spilled all of my worries to Mommy she would be able to do what mom’s do best, that is, tell me what to do. Instead, she followed my story with her own life exasperations; she one-upped me.
As I listened to my mom and dad, who have been working adults for longer than my entire life, tell me that they have no idea what they want to do next or what they can see themselves doing for the rest of their lives, I realized that in a way, life is really just one big social experiment. For the first twenty or so years of our lives, we all have these clear goals in mind: graduate, then graduate again, and for some, graduate a few more times. Then what? The trial and error begins.
Looking back at all the things I thought I might enjoy, the only regret I have is that I didn’t try even more possible career avenues. College may only be four short years, but that’s four years specifically dedicated to figuring out just what you can see yourself doing for the rest of your life. After graduation, the only real goal left is to find happiness in life. Take my advice; don’t hesitate to start looking for it in college.