So far in class and online and in many ways we have discussed the future. The future that we want to pursue and the ways in which we can prepare ourselves now in order to be successful in our pursuits. For the most part our discussions have begun the same, “what do you want to do with your major?” or “what do you want to be when you grow up?”, questions we have all heard and been asked a million times. Questions that as a Spanish major are maybe just a little more open ended than for someone studying say Engineering. Ever since probably junior year of High School people have been asking me what I want to do with my life and although I have tried many times to give answers that will satisfy whoever is asking me, now I realize that one of the bravest answers you can give is “I honestly don’t know, and I am okay with not knowing right now.”

I have studied Spanish for a long time, since 2nd grade to be exact, and I feel extremely lucky to have had such a long exposure. Spanish has always been the only subject I truly enjoy in school. However when I graduated High School I had no idea or intention to major in Spanish at UMass. I am someone who likes to have a plan, I usually don’t like to wing it and I feel a little nervous when I don’t have my future planned out. So freshman year I was a PoliSci major and I was part of the Army ROTC program, headed in the direction of being a Lieutenant when I graduated college. I had everything planned out and it felt good. But then I got into my PoliSci classes and further involved in ROTC and I realized that neither was for me. I realized for one of the first times in my life that having a plan wasn’t worth doing something I didn’t enjoy. So I dropped both, began taking more Spanish classes, and began enjoying what I was doing more and more.

Now, I am a Junior, very close to being done with my Spanish major and I am loving every class I take and every experience I have with the Spanish language and the cultures that accompany it. Spanish has led me to Catalan, which I am enjoying just as much. I have three semesters left at UMass and I am very confident in my studies but at the same time I am as sure as ever that I do NOT know what I want to do with my life and my major/minor after UMass.

We have talked a lot about teaching and being teachers and I have considered that route many times. But as we discussed in class, for 20 years the only profession we have really been exposed to is teachers and professors, so naturally that is something we know and would maybe feel comfortable doing. But for me, I ask myself, how I can graduate college and just go right back to high school? I would someday love to be involved in the learning of a second language in a professional way. But I feel like with Spanish and Catalan so many doors are open to me and us that we just don’t know about yet. For now, I in my future I want to explore those options, I want to be open to all professions and spend some time finding what I can and enjoy doing.

As far as my immediate future I do have some plans. I plan on graduating in the Spring 2016 with a Spanish major and if all goes to plan a Catalan minor as well. Then I am going to try my hardest to spend a year in Spain with the Cultural Ambassadors program as a teacher’s aide, hopefully in Catalan speaking part of Spain. After that my life is open and I think I am finally okay with that and I am excited to see what I find.

I would just like to write one more thing that I always seem to think about. That is, that one year ago or even a couple years ago, there is no possible way that I could have guessed that I would be where I am in life right now. Even with all the plans I had for my future, I guessed wrong, and I ended up here instead (something that I am very grateful for). So going forward I have learned from this and although I know how important the future is, I am not going to put so much effort into trying to guess exactly where I’ll be when I get there.