Why this major? When I first heard this question I thought the answer was obvious, I like Spanish and I always felt really drawn to it. When I started the university as a biochemistry major I knew it wasn’t for me, and when I took my first Spanish class and finally officially declared myself a Spanish major I knew it was what I wanted to be doing. I thought that was enough. As a biochem student I knew that I wanted to be a forensic toxicologist, I just realized that I hated everything leading up to it, so I figured I wouldn’t like my career. I loved Spanish and had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do. I figured that eventually I would just fall into a career, I would find something I’m wicked passionate about and then I would be set.

After seeing how Spanish teachers were treated by students I knew that being a high school Spanish teacher was out of the question, and other than being a translator or lawyer I couldn’t think of any other uses for a Spanish major. When I showed up to the first day of my integrated experience class and all of a sudden I was surrounded by people who seemed to know what they were doing I started to doubt my reasons for being a Spanish major. Was liking Spanish just not enough? Should I already have an in depth knowledge of a career that I know I want? Eventually I started to see that not knowing is ok because it leaves room for exploration.

I’m also a double major in theater with a certificate in arts management. This seemed to open up more options to me at the beginning, but then all of a sudden I felt limited to a career that combines all three of my areas of study. What careers combine Spanish and theater? Not as many as I had hoped. For a while I thought that maybe working in a non-profit that brought arts to a community would be a way of using all of my schooling in one job, but I started to see that’s necessarily the path I want to go down either. After working for a non-profit and a for-profit theater I learned that as rewarding as non-profit work is, it isn’t something that I see myself doing forever.

So it all comes back to why this major? One reason is because I love Spanish, you should always love what you are studying. Another is that it will never hurt me. Being a Spanish major teaches you so much about the world, about interacting with people, about expanding your horizons and about a language that’s not your own. Majoring in a foreign language opens my mind to so many things that I never would have thought about or been exposed too. If I end up working only in theater, if only for a while or forever, I know that being a Spanish major won’t have been a waste; I’ll still have learned something useful. I may not know what I’m doing now, but I know how I’m getting there.