I was never a kid who had a dream job at five years old. A look back at my academic career shows a smorgasbord of decisions and dead-ends that luckily have led me to a major in Spanish. While I was attending high school, I was one hundred percent certain that I would never have a concentration of Spanish in college. Truthfully, I could not see the benefit in having a degree in another language, seeing as I was already fluent in English and Polish. So I pushed aside the fact that my favorite classes had always been my Spanish ones and I ignored that studying languages and cultures were the only subjects that had ever excited me, and I wasted a lot of time intending to choose a different concentration. I came into UMass as a student in Isenberg: I thought that maybe business management was my calling. In reality, I had no clue what a person majoring in this field actually did and within the first few days in class it became apparent that whatever my life ambitions were- they were not those of a business student. I was constantly bored listening about how to maximize profits, and how to follow the capitalist system blindly. More than anything, I missed thinking critically about things, so I impulsively changed my major to linguistics. Linguistic theory fascinated me, but yet again, I soon found something about it that I just didn’t like. It had no real application to help society at large- I could help expand academic knowledge by studying it, but that would not improve the lives of common people in any way. I realized that I wanted to study something that would allow me to help people, and linguistics was not the way to do that. Since this major had also disappointed me, I searched and thought I found something that met the criteria I was searching for, something that included critical thinking but also actively helped people: communication disorders. I dedicated myself to this primary major completely, though through all of this I always had Spanish as a minor.

I had entered the communications disorders major rather late in my undergraduate degree, so I worked had to catch up in the stiff course requirements. I overloaded my schedule with classes (21-23 credits a semester), I worked sometimes two to three jobs at a time and managed to remain active in UMass activities and keep up something resembling a social life. The single Spanish class per semester I allowed myself to take was something I looked forward to. In fact, I liked the required classes for the Spanish minor so much so that I decided to add it as a secondary major- and that is how I found myself in Preparation for the Spanish-Speaking World in Fall 2015. I enjoyed this class enormously, and for the first time, I began to consider the possibility of focusing on a career that would use everything I had learned in my Spanish classes. I found out that I could realize my desire to work with and in communities and combine it with my studies and I was excited by the thought. However, at this point I was completely wrapped up in my crazy schedule and I could not think of a way to escape the whirlwind my life had become. Luckily, that opportunity came once I left to study abroad the following semester.

My life slowed down considerably when I began my semester of study in Granada, Spain, and it gave me time to reflect. The classes I took there were not anything special, but even my least favorite class made my happier than any of my classes in the Communication Disorders major. My actual turning point came in the most unlikely moment: I was outside of my favorite discoteca, or club, in Granada, and I was talking to a Russian acrobat I had met that day. He asked me a really simple question: what was I planning to do with the rest of my life? What were my dreams? I couldn’t think of an answer. In that moment, I was finally aware that the direction my life was going was never something I had wanted. With a major in Communication Disorders, I was on track to getting a doctoral degree and becoming a Speech Pathologist. I liked the classes of the major for the most part- but being a Speech Pathologist? The thought left me feeling hollow. I was lost, and angry at myself for wasting so much time studying in a field that I yet again grew to detest. At the same time, I was terrified of switching my major this far into it. It was my junior year! I would be a senior once I came back home, and dropping a major senior year was an unthinkable thing. Rather than focus my energy thinking about that, I found a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) course and internship for the summer, and emailed Professor Marentes for advice. I didn’t change my major, but I was juggling the possibility of taking more Spanish and Education classes at UMass.

I returned to the US still in love with Granada (of course) and still unsure of what to do about my major. My schedule was still full of classes for Communication Disorders, though I had added a Multicultural Education course into the mix. But after the first day of classes, I knew what I had to do. Just one day of neuroscience, one day of how to complete paperwork for a career I was not passionate about, convinced me that I should not be wasting my last year at UMass studying something I detested. I dropped my primary major and switched it to Spanish. Now, although my class schedule is half-full compared to what I usually took, I finally feel that I am studying something that benefits me. I am taking a service-learning class, three classes in the Spanish department and I am writing an honors thesis. I don’t know which career exactly   I will pursue after graduation. But the thought no longer scares me- as long as I am studying something that makes me happy, I’ll find my way. My advice is: pursue a course of study that forces you to think critically about yourself, the communities you belong to and your relation to them. Never forget that education is a privilege: make your college career worth it, whatever that means to you.