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November 02, 2005
If you don't know where you are going...
Are you tired of people asking you what your major is going to be? I only ask because I keenly remember being a high school senior, hating The Question, and wanting to puke every time I was asked it (like, gag me with a spoon!), and that was many, many years ago.
Oh, I had an answer to The Question. It was the one my parents wanted me to have. I was going to major in chemistry. Unfortunately, I could never quite get myself to really believe it. Every time I heard it, I got this feeling of shear panic that I was supposed to know what I was going to do and I really didn't. For me, it was worse than worrying about SAT scores.
So I went in as a chemistry major, which lasted about one semester, and came out an English major. I wasn't bad at it -- I just didn't like it. I can't really say that I have regretted the decision. It developed my mind -- an intangible advantage that's enabled me to find different employment situations that best fit what I need in the moment -- from corporate PR jobs to a part-time, freelancing "sabbatical."
Apparently, I'm not the only one. The business publication Fast Company recently published an article called The New MBAs about five leaders who have parlayed their "useless" academic degrees into business success.
For some reason, I always like to hear what the philosophy majors end up doing. Maybe because popular culture places that below English on the usefulness scale. Maybe because the two philosophy majors I've personally known have been really successful -- one is a corporate communications guru and the other was last seen writing for Wired.
So if you are telling your parents that you are going to go pre-med or study engineering, but your heart doesn't jump for joy when you say it -- no worries. College is about exploring. Life is about exploring. You'll figure it out eventually. Very few people have career paths that are perfectly straight and uncomplicated.
In other words, if you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there.
Posted by pls9 at November 2, 2005 12:46 PM
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