Lately, I have been feeling self-reflective on the life decisions I have made.  Luckily it’s mostly been positive, and to be perfectly honest this entire event is driven by the fact that I am officially starting my thesis research. If you are looking for the big, quick moral of the story, here it is: Don’t skip taking a class that you think (or everyone else thinks) is super challenging or that you might fail at.

If you have read my blog post from last week you know that I got a lot of push-back and confusion in my life when I said I wanted to be anthropology major. It seems that people struggle to see the value in what I decided to study. However, reactions changed once I took my first computer science class. I also briefly talked about how everyone thought I would fail, I am hoping to expand on this lack of faith in my ability in this blog post. With that in mind let’s go back to the end of my first year, to registration for fall of 2013.

During that registration period, for some reason, I had decided that it was a brilliant idea to take an Introductory Computer Science course. My decision to try it honestly made me nervous. Yes, one of my good friends was a computer science major, but she was also one of the smart people who goes to Harvey Mudd. Yes, I am a smart person and I can learn, but I wasn’t sure if computer science was necessarily the right fit for me. My parents and my friend were encouraging; I spent some time with the nagging feeling that this was going to go horribly wrong.

For the record, there was every likelihood that it was going to go horrible wrong. I mean CS is a new way of thinking, and some people don’t always get it.  I also had really only taken humanities classes at this point and generally most science classes outside of biology made me nervous.

My mother, kept trying to help me by telling me that at any point I could actually audit the class rather than taking it for a grade. She told me this quite often, and very late into the semester.

It wasn’t until after trying CS that I learned the truth. There was a lot of fear that I would fail spectacularly, and this was a fear my mother had (for the record, my mom’s an engineer and my dad once tried a programming course and it was very unpleasant for both of them). It’s not that she thought I wasn’t smart, it was more that she didn’t think I would be good at CS. I even had that fear myself. The fear that I wouldn’t be good at something, that something would be too difficult for me to understand.

There were points in this class where I got confused, concepts that I struggled with understanding and needed help on. Ultimately, I managed, I got the help I needed, and I persevered.

I learned that when in doubt try things at least once. If you think you are going to fail (or other people do), still try it. You might surprise yourself. Even if you don’t do as well as you wanted, the experience could still be an amazing learning experience. But most of all, do what you want to do, and don’t let people’s doubts in your ability stop you.

How you feel sometimes

A while ago, somewhere around  my senior year of high school, I had decided that I wanted to be an anthropology major. Now the problem with anthropology  is that for a lot of people there isn’t  a direct path in life. What I mean by this is, there isn’t a direct carreer path besides deciding to be an academic.

I never found this lack of a direct connection to a job a problem; I figured I would develop skills over time and that potential employers would find me and my skills. What I didn’t expect was the constant need to justify my choice of  major to everyone.

Often (usually around older people), I would be asked about my major. They would look at my blankly, smile, then ask, “yes, but what do you do with that?” For anyone dealing with this  I have come up with an official list of answers,  the ones that I most commonly use.

1. I shall become Supreme Ruler of the World- The key to saying this is to smile and walk away after responding, it leaves people unsure if you are being serious or not
2. Well, I will develop critical thinking skills and other skills that are widely applicable to many jobs
3. Forward them an article that says how awesome your major is or a job that uses your major

These are all viable options when dealing with people. Though admittedly the last two are probably the more productive.  People have trouble figuring out what you are supposed to do with a liberal arts degree sometimes, or they are expecting some concrete plan for the next five years of your life.

Honestly, the amount of life-skills I have gained from a liberal arts degree is amazing. I am developing critical  and interdisciplinary thinking, , writing, communication and countless others. Perhaps the degree doesn’t have a specific job that I know I am going into (like accounting), but I will be able to find a job that utilizes all that I have learned.

Now, part two of this story is certainly interesting. During my sophomore year of college I took my first Computer Science Class.

PSA: At this point I believe that most people should try computer science at least once in your life. It is probably not going to cause you physical pain, maybe some emotional turmoil. You could hate it, you could love it, but you should try it.

My computer science experience was one of those odd experiences where I thought it  would be something I was completely horrible at (not just me, but my mother also)  and it turned into something that I enjoyed. So I decided to take some more computer science classes, and I added a second major,  Science, Technology and Society.

People’s reactions changed too. If anything, they got moreconfused, and it seemed that everyone thought I should have more of an idea of what I was doing with my life.

“Oh wow, your taking computer science classes and you have this weird humanities thing, wait, where do you see yourself in five years”

“Cool sounding major, what do you want to do with your life?”

Unfortunately for me and everyone else, making my major sound more complicated has not actually done anything to help me know what I want to do with my
life, and I usually still give the same responses. People don’t typically understand when I tell them that I don’t think I really want to be a software developer, but coding skills are useful.

At the end of the day it’s okay if you don’t have a five year plan. It’s okay to not really know what you are planning on doing, maybe in a month two I’ll know what I am doing after college, but not right now. And who knows where I’ll be in five years.