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A
Major is More Minor Than You
Think by
Forrest D. Poston
When you're five years old and somebody asks what you want
to be when you grow up, adults will call any response cute
from cowboy to president. There's a little laughter and
everyone forgets because they don't take it seriously.
Somewhere after puberty, that's one of the many things that
changes. Suddenly family members and teachers state or imply
that you should know, must know, what you plan to major in
and what you're going to do from now to retirement. Too many
of my students have started college hounded by the feeling
that of all the people in the world, they're the inadequate
ones because they don't know what they want---except not to
grow up. Family and teachers need to learn when to be quiet,
and all their questions, prodding, and suggestions are doing
a dis-service. Guess what? There's no reason to expect
anyone to know what they want to be or do when they've had
no real help understanding who they are or what the choices
can be. Some do, and that's fine. Some think they do, and
that can be a problem. Some know they don't, but someone
told them to make a choice and stick with it, and that's
stupid.
Go back a hundred years or so, and the process was easier
simply because there weren't that many choices. For men, the
chances were they would follow a father or uncle. For women,
career was less often even a choice. Most teenagers weren't
even expected to consider college, and most colleges didn't
even offer American Literature, much less Sports Medicine or
Computer Science. Survival was a central issue followed by
getting ahead. For many, those are still issues, but if
you've made it into college they don't have to be the issues
anymore. College is almost synonymous with choice, or at
least it can be, and that's part of the problem. The number
of basic choices is overwhelming, and you don't even have a
clue what the sub-categories are, what you can actually do
with that major once you get it.
No problem once you adapt a new attitude. Forget the idea of
knowing what you want. You probably do know to some degree,
but the more you swirl the waters with frustration, doubt,
and fear, the less likely you are to see it or remember it.
College isn't about knowing. If it was, you wouldn't need
it. College is about finding out. It's about taking a
philosophy course, chemistry, art, literature, just to see.
One of my nursing majors told me she hated going to her
psychology course because everytime she went it made her
want to change her major to psychology. So? Maybe she
should. Maybe not. Maybe it's a clue that there are ways to
mix things. Maybe it isn't just pick a major that leads
straight to a set job, regular promotions, retirement.
I'm going to take an easy path here and use some highway
metaphors. (Sometimes I think anything can be understood
with road metaphors.) Neither college nor life are an
interstate highway. You don't hit the on-ramp, set the
cruise control and kick back until the off-ramp. Besides,
who really wants that for the whole trip. Depending on where
you live, there's a fair chance you've spent some time out
on the backroads, maybe out where there are no roads. Where
I grew up, there was the interstate, the old road, and the
old, old road to choose from on almost any trip. Then there
were the various dirt roads that might or might not go
anywhere anymore. You go out and pick a turn. Turn again and
again. Maybe you hit a dead end, so you back up just a bit
and make another choice. Sometimes you pull in at the dead
end and do things you don't plan to tell your parents,
anymore than they've told you about some of their travels.
Sooner or later you come out back on the asphalt. You may
enter town from the north rather than south, but you're
there with adventures to share. You didn't worry too much
about which road because you could always change your mind.
So what's different now? Not as much as you may think. Okay,
you probably don't want to spend the next couple of decades
in school, but you can investigate a lot of backroads in
four years, maybe five. Call some of them deadends or even
mistakes. It's not life-threatening if the graphic design
class doesn't work out, and someday the one thing you
remember from that class may be the final answer on "Who
Wants to Be a Millionaire," or whatever show has taken its
place by then.
Most majors aren't going to lead straight into one and only
one job anyway. Over the years, you'll change jobs, almost
certainly change careers, more than once. The person you are
at the end of your freshman year is a lot different from
when you entered college, better and worse. You've done some
good things, and you've screwed up. You've probably done one
or two things that were really stupid, and you're lucky to
get a shot at your sophomore year. You're going to screw up
more in the future. Who doesn't? Maybe you still think your
parents are perfect, but if you knew all the mistakes
they've made you'd find it a little easier to laugh and take
the next road. And twenty years later, your major won't make
nearly as much difference as you expected. You really don't
have to get it right and perfect before age 22. Well, if you
do, then I'm really screwed up, and so is everybody I know.
Relax a bit. Take some shots at different things with your
eyes open. Trust yourself and the universe just a bit. Once
you do, there's a fair chance you'll hear a voice from a
younger self remind you what you really always wanted to do
but were afraid to try. I guess that's the real kicker. Most
of the times my students have hit on that thing they always
wanted, it's what they were most afraid to try. Too many of
us would rather succeed at what we hate than risk failing at
what we love.
Joseph Campbell used to tell his students to follow their
bliss, which too many people think is the same as if it
feels good, do it, but bliss is different. Bliss tends to
mean falling down an awful lot before learning to walk.
Bliss means doing what you really most need to do even if
people laugh, even if you don't see the money, even if your
friends are going another way. Every road has potholes and
speed bumps, some really nasty traps. Your choice is whether
you want to suffer from the trials on somebody else road or
your own. Yeah, trials do lead to revelations. On your road,
they lead to your revelations. On somebody else's road, they
lead to the revelation that you're on somebody else's road.
One last aphorism: if you're willing to make your own
mistakes, you'll also make your own successes.
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Other Essays and Poetry
Something
Somewhat
Vaguely
Like a Resume
Being
Like
Children
The
Blessing and the Blues
The
Cat With a Bucket List
David
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The
Dawn, the Dark, and the Horse I Didn't Ride In On (an
odd, meandering, semi-romantic story)
Ghost
Dancer
in the Twilight Zone
The
Hair Connection and the Nature of Choices
The Mug,
the Magic, and the Mistake
Trumpet
Player,
USDA Approved
Videos
Poetry
Selected
Poems
The
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Process
Writing by Current or Former Students
Ms.
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by Heide Perry
I'll
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Have Cats
by Cara Hummel
Toys
to
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by Allyson Bowlds
Scribbles
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