Doubts

Do you ever wake up and just doubt everything that you’ve been certain about for a whole two years?

Well, I sure hope it doesn’t happen that often, because I’d like to not feel this uncertain, scared, and desperate for a clear path towards my future every other week.

But maybe this is my ‘wake up call’, so to speak.

I just can’t shake the feeling that what I’m doing is just not the right kind of work for me. Maybe I got in a little too over my head. Maybe I didn’t think things through realistically. Maybe I didn’t realize what I’d signed on to until I showed up for my first day of classes.

Here’s the bottom line: I think I want to change my major.

Not quite that radically––I still love to write, to communicate, and I am still grateful for everything the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism has given me in my first seven months of college.

But this incessant obsession with global politics, international relations, and environmental preservation has had me enraptured since February, and I don’t want to just stifle this stirring feeling that’s erupting within me.

You see, I don’t have the desire to jump from one story to the next as a print journalist––to live in a constant state of this-to-this-to-this-to-this, perpetually living in a world of attention deficit. I have too much focus, too much dedication, and too much devotion to people, topics, and places for that kind of mentality.

So newspaper and broadcast journalist is unlikely. Scratch that. I’ve lived it, and I don’t necessarily want to pursue it anymore.

I thought, for a time, that I’d just devote my life to environmental science laboratory work. Science is such a fascinating exploration of life, humans, and the miracles at work here on Earth.

But now I see that I don’t quite fit the role of a ‘scientist’, either.

I have too much passion, too much restlessness, and too much of a desire to DO, to SPEAK, to EMPOWER. And working on the next sustainability green roof science or examining bacteria and microbes in a test tube would be interesting, no doubt––but not quite as fulfilling as I imagined my life would be.

And to be honest, I’m not that intelligent to compete with medics and lab technicians, engineers and technologists. I’m too much of an optimist, a free spirit who likes wishing on shooting stars, a daydreamer who enjoys beauty, art, and mystery. I don’t think facts and figures will save me. Sorry.

So here’s my new proposition: Scripps School Strategic Communication, coupled with a Global/International Studies major (or minor if I don’t have time?), along with a specialization in Environmental Studies.

This new tract would allow me opportunities to work for national or global organizations (National Geographic Society, United Nations) dedicated to protecting the planet and human society. I would still be able to ‘save the Earth’ and use my communication skills effectively to promote and foster global change. Perhaps I could join a team of environmental policy makers (who knew I’d want to use my debating skills in the realm of global politics?) and work to effect change in sustainability and conservation standards around the world.

Or perhaps this is just a whim of mine that will come and go like this sixty-degree weather.

But maybe I’ve started to realize what it is that I can do with my skills, my passions, and my strengths.

All I know is this: you never know what you want to do exactly when you get out of high school. You have to live in the ‘real world’ and ask yourself the hard questions when you’re on your own. And I think I just did.

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