Ever since I was a child, I was always curious about Spanish. The idea of learning something new, especially a language, was captivating enough, and thus, a strong passion for language learning was born. In my hometown, our school system has a Spanish Immersion program where students starting from 1st Grade up to high school are taught in an exclusive enviroment taught soley in Spanish. Though I was unable to sign up for the program due to it being full, I was still eager to learn Spanish and excitedly waited until 6th Grade, where I finally embarked on my journey of language learning.

As my high school career was coming to an end, it was time to decide where I wanted to go to school and what I wanted to major in. At the time, I was not entirely sure what I wanted to do, so I decided that I wanted to do engineering, since it was a subject area that I was interested in and I have several family members who are engineers. When I applied to UMass Amherst, my first choice was engineering, but in the event that I wasn’t accepted into the program, I chose Spanish as a means to get into the university and then take the pre-requisite courses to transfer. When I finally received my acceptance email, I was dissapointed to hear that I was not accepted into the Engineering program. Fast forward to the Spring semester of 2021 and I was taking four classes that were pre-requisites to transfer into engineering. Halfway through the semester, I was contact-traced with someone who had COVID and was placed in isolation for around a week. While in isolation, I had plenty of time to think about everything currently going on in my life, and suddenly came to a realization. I came to realize that engineering was just not the right choice for me, and that I was ignoring the one thing I was truly passionate about this whole time, Spanish and language learning.

Now that I’m back on the Spanish track, I feel as if the metaphorical flame within me has been rekindled and find myself enjoying my classes and being more invested in what I’m learning. With this reignited passion for language learning, I am pursuing a secondary major in Linguistics and a minor in Portuguese. For those thinking about stepping away from a career/subject area they are passionate about for another, take some time to talk to yourself about why you are doing this and what are you trying to acheive. In my case it did not work out, however, I found myself in a much better headspace and more content and satisfied with my career choice. Sometimes in life things might not work, but with those moments they may lead you down a much more fulfilling path.