Tag Archives: uncertainty

It’s Okay to Be Uncertain

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Wouldn’t it be handy to be able to see the future? Think of all of the tests you could have studied harder (or less) for, or how much time you could have saved on _____ if only you had known that _____. It sounds wonderful, right? Being in the know is definitely a stress reliever and can definitely make work easier.

The bummer is that nobody can see the future. Everything, as far as you and I know, is up for grabs. It can be stressful, in fact, sometimes it is incredibly stressful. I think back to college apps and wished I could have reminded myself from the future (even though I probably knew) that things would work out one way or another.

Uncertainties can be found in a variety of departments from jobs to school to relationships to majors and beyond. Postulating about what may be rarely helps, even though it may feel like you’re preparing for what may come. What does help is action.

Actively looking for things you can do to help yourself out is one way you can not read, but maybe adjust your future. I rarely believe in luck; favorable probabilities tend to result from hard work and strategy, though sometimes there is a little magic to how things turn out.

I know that I’m not entirely sure where my life is going in the grand scheme of things, but I can identify immediate interests (I’ve declared a Foreign Languages major, I’m joining clubs) that help me explore possibilities and whittle down some uncertainties. My next step is summer jobs and internships, which I’ve heard is invaluable in helping find out what you enjoy. As I look around for things, I’m excited to have the chance to apply to (and if I’m lucky, try out) something new.

So if you’re stressing out about finding summer jobs or jobs for the semester, or maybe you’re waiting to hear back from grad schools that you’ve applied to, have faith. With your hard work going in and some patience (as well as some flexibility), whatever the end result is, you will be able to live with it and work from there. For now, sit back, set the stress from uncertainty to the side because you have probably done just about everything you can.

Where am I going, where have I been?

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I grew up in an almost aggressively STEM biased town, a average sized midwestern city called Rochester in southeast Minnesota. STEM and Small Town, MN… hmm. Though it seems like an unlikely combination, Rochester is the home of the Mayo Clinic, a top-tier medical institution with a handful of major campuses around the US. Just a bit more background about home: it feels like almost everyone has a family member that works at the Clinic or IBM. For most of my life, I lived across the street from the emergency room (that turned out to be rather convenient when I broke my nose falling out of bed), and the sounds of the Mayo helicopter overhead is just ambient noise.

As a result of this, I felt that for the longest time I wanted to be a doctor. For a while, I wanted to be a pediatrician so that I could work with kids, possibly because I remember my little sister being in the hospital a few times. After a heath careers camp, I was sure I wanted to be a nurse anesthetist. This stem fixation lasted a while, likely through seventh grade. After that, maybe because my eighth grade science class wasn’t may favorite, I switched courses.

My next fixation was journalism. Not just journalism, but studying journalism at Mizzou (University of Missouri), a school well known for its media studies programs. I had done extensive research about the school’s admissions, the program, and student life. This shift came after Journalism Camp in Minneapolis, MN. There, I made a short film about the Minnesota education system with three other students.

But this wasn’t right either. After a while, I hit a period of uncertainty where I didn’t have any idea what I wanted. My ACT score report reaffirmed this, as I took the Interest Inventory piece that comes before the exam. It was indeed true that I did not have a “clear preference for working with people, ideas, data, or things.”

It was scary not being sure of what I wanted to do, especially since my peers seemed so sure that they would be pediatric oncologists or whatever else (What is a pediatric oncologist? I still don’t know).

After a bit of self-discovery, I realized that I really enjoyed my history and language classes. I knew I enjoyed talking and interacting with people, so diplomacy, political science, or international relations. This path lead me through the rest of my high school career.

Eventually, the time of year came where I had decided to go to Scripps. I cried with joy to realize that I was able to go, but I was also a liitle scared to be going into the “real world,” where I would need to start knowing where I wanted to go in life.

Over the summer, I began thinking about my intended path, and looked at what classes I wanted to take year one. Korean, Spanish, Core, Writing 50. That’s when I realized that it wasn’t the international relations piece I was interested as much as I liked the languages.

I knew Scripps had a foreign language major, but I wasn’t sure if it would be what I wanted. With a nervous heart, I clicked on the program on the majors list to see if the foreign languages major was what I hoped it was.

I was so glad that I had looked. It was all that I had dreamed what it would be, if not more.

Flash forward to now: week nine of my first semester in college. I’m taking the classes I had hoped, plus a ballroom dancing course. I plan on declaring my Foreign Languages: Two-Language Cultural Study of Spanish and Korean this week.

This definitely wasn’t a streamlined or organized process, but through all of this exploration  I’ve made it to a place where I think I’ll stay for a long time.

Medical School or a Masters Program?

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Happy Wednesday Scrippsies! I’m sure the weather is as beautiful as ever, but it’s been pretty cloudy in Dublin and I am definitely missing the sunshine.

  vs.  As promised, I will be sharing with you my list of pros and cons that I’ve made for myself regarding medical school. It ended up morphing into a list of things that I want from a job and questions I had about whether or not my life goals would fit into the timeline that medical school inserts into your life. Without further ado:

What do I want from my job?

-I want to be challenged daily

-I want to work with people, preferably kids

-I want to be able to help people

-I don’t want to do the same thing every single day

-I want to develop a relationship with the people I work with

What do I want out of my 20’s? Could medical school hinder those plans?

-I want the opportunity to travel

-I eventually want a family

Although this is a pretty short list at this point, it has given me a good idea of whether or not the medical field might be right for me. I believe that most of the things I want from my job would be fulfilled by working in medicine, which is promising.

Being away from Scripps, surrounded by new people, I’ve had the chance to reflect on myself in a completely new way and find that I am more sure of myself and my abilities as a student and more confident in who I am as a person than I might’ve realized at Scripps. I think that these are key qualities for anyone working in medicine, which is also promising.

Besides medicine, I have also been considering a Masters program, run by MIT, that specializes specifically in teaching students how to communicate science to the general public. I’d be particularly interested in examining how this sort of communication, be it writing, museum exhibits, or other forms of technology, can be geared towards kids. The program is only nine months and connects graduates with a local business or corporation at the end, with examples such as The Boston Globe and Boston Children’s Hospital. This program is of interest to me because of the interdisciplinary approach taken to science and the arts. I have also felt torn between the two worlds and this program seems to offer a solution to the strain I often feel.

Working with kids this summer at a summer day camp, I knew that I needed to find a way to incorporate working with kids into my future occupation. At the start of the summer, I assumed that I would get bored of watching them at a certain point, or run out of things to do with them, but they always kept things lively and interesting and I always looked forward to going to work. That was the first time that I felt so certain about my future and why I would hope to work with kids if I choose to work in medicine.

Based on what I’ve just written, it’s easy to see that I am conflicted about what my future might, or should, hold. But knowing that that’s okay and giving myself time to really think about what I want for my future is comforting.

Have any stories or questions about your own path, or just want someone to bounce ideas off of? Shoot me an email, or comment below! I’d love to hear from you! ([email protected])

Is This Real Life Now?

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It’s strange to think that my life is never going to be the same again. Never again will I be living at home with my parents (hopefully) for more than a summer, and never again will life be what it was like just a few months ago.

Going to college signifies for most of us a transition into the real world. After our four years of college we will be spit out into jobs and internships and new places on our own. Although four years seems like a long time, that world will be here before we know it.

As a first-year in college, it’s hard to think about anything other than the freedom at hand. Coming from high school, college feels like heaven. We no longer have to sit at school for eight hours a day and abide by the school-determined schedules. We now have thousands of classes at our fingertips that aren’t just chemistry or biology, but astronomy and geology and the physics of music. It feels like your options are unlimited, and they pretty much are!

However, every once in a while I remember the real reason why I am here. College prepares you for the ever looming real world. I am here in order to get my degree, to help me get a job, and be successful once my schooling is over. While college also provides a fun and enjoyable environment, it has a larger purpose and that’s hard to remember sometimes!

Even though I am only a first-year, I feel as if I need to have the rest of my life figured out. I am the type of person that likes to know where I’m going and what I’m doing, and I typically do. That’s why college frightens me; I have fewer plans now for my life than I have ever had. With the prospect of the real world looming so near in the future, it’s hard to create imaginary ideas for what I want to do with my life when I know that I should now take it much more seriously. What if I don’t take the right classes, or I don’t find a major that interests me? These questions probably seem trivial to older students who have already gone through this process, but for me it seems so terrifying. I have no idea what job I want to have, let alone what I even want to study.

When I saw an opportunity to attend a panel of esteemed writers, I thought, why not? I’m interested in journalism and publishing and writing and thought it would be interesting to hear what they had to say. They continuously told us to start branching out early and making connections, and be constantly working towards what we want to do. They told us that you have to be willing to put the work in, and that we should start soon. So of course I left the panel and went right to work looking for internships and potential jobs and ways that I could start networking.

In the excitement of the panel, I spent so much time thinking about what I would do after college that I forgot about where I was and the following day. I had to bring myself back down to earth and remind myself to do my homework that was due in two days, and not worry too much about work for four years in the future. Although it is important to know why we are here, there is definitely a balance between appreciating the now and preparing for the future. College is inclusive of both, and no matter what you do while here, it should help you be able to make decision for the future.