The first day of my freshman year I had no doubts about what I was going to do with my future. I came in declared as a Biochemistry major, and after graduation I was going to graduate school to study Genetics. This was my plan through most of high school, and even then I could not understand how other people did not know what they wanted to do with their lives. Full of certainty about the future I did very well in my science classes, but by the middle of the semester I realized that I hated the major I had chosen. The biology classes were not too bad, but I hated chemistry labs and the chemistry classes put me to sleep on a regular basis. I remember walking back from class one day thinking, “Do I really want to spend the rest of my life studying chemistry and working in a lab?” It didn’t take long for me to realize that I had made a mistake in my career choice, and I began to think about what else I could do.

        Back in high school, my favorite classes were Spanish, French, and Calculus. I knew I wasn’t going to become a Math major based off my current Calculus 3 grades, so I thought about a  Foreign Language major. In high school I took both languages, and received the Foreign Language superlative of my graduating class, so I knew I’d be good at it. The first profession that came to mind was being a high school teacher, and that made me think of all the teachers that I had in high school. I realized that I would love being a teacher.

         By the start of the spring semester, I was officially a Linguistics and Spanish major, and I had no doubts about my choice. I had decided on the joint major because I was not only interested in Spanish, I am interested in learning how all languages work, and I think that helps a person teach one language if they know how to compare them to others. Hopefully I will get a good taste of how other languages work when I study abroad.

        I plan on studying abroad somewhere in Spain next year. I have decided that I want to avoid the bigger cities like Madrid and Grenada, and Barcelona because I don’t plan on learning Catalan at the moment. So now I am searching for the perfect place for me in southern Spain. I want somewhere where I can travel around Europe rather easily and I’d like to be near the beach. However at the moment I have no idea where in the world I’ll be living this time next year, but I find that pretty exciting. I love traveling and I plan on doing more of it after graduating.

         When I think about my future after graduation, I am pretty excited to spend the first few years, traveling and teaching around the world. Once I’ve seen all the world has to offer, I can’t wait to settle down into a nice high school teaching job. Sometimes I even start to think of how I am going to teach my students certain subjects in my language while I’m in class. I have yet to figure out how I am going to to teach the subjunctive, but I’ve given other topics a lot of thought already.

          I believe that choosing a Spanish major was the best decision I have made here at UMass. I enjoy all of my classes, and I am optimistic for my future. As a Biochemistry major, I hated class and most importantly I wasn’t very excited for my career after college.