I am having a hard time reaching any major conclusions about my college experience that connects multiple realms of experiences. I think this is because more than once in the past few years I have felt as though I was sure of some idea, only to have my mind changed by some incident soon after. For example, after reading Descartes meditations I felt a strange sense of relief that the little things I felt anxieties about didn’t matter, and might not even really exist. In other courses, like Intro to Anthropology, and History 100, I was humbled and left the course feeling insignificant. This new found sense of insignificance was comforting. It was like no matter what mistake I made, I knew that it didn’t really matter. This in turn led to existential concerns about life.
For a while I felt really insecure about my potential to become a functioning adult with a career. I also felt as if their were so many directions (in terms of my career and lifestyle) I could choose to go in that I would never be able to make the right decision. I’ve made a lot of choices in the past few years that might seem random to most people. This includes the odd jobs I’ve had, the groups of people I’ve identified with, and the classes I’ve taken that may have ended up contributing nothing towards my academic requirements. I can truly say that I don’t regret anything.
By exploring the incredible variety of options that I have had at UMass, I’ve met so many different people with an equally vast number of perspectives, goals, and philosophies about life. It was sometimes hard to decide what was correct, what was important. The conclusion that I’ve come to from this is that people often choose their own destinies. That sounds a little more mystical than I wanted it to, but essentially what I mean is that if someone wants to be or do something enough, there is nothing that will prevent it. If a person feels that they are going to hate a class for example, they probably will. If another person feels that they will learn a lot from a class, that person usually leaves the class feeling enlightened in some way. At the very least, if things don’t work out as planned, then that can be taken as a learning experience and lead to new and better things.
I think that my anxieties about my own life intersecting with the exposure to so many different types of people has given me a lot of confidence that not only am I capable of becoming that which I choose to, but also that whatever I choose to do is okay. It doesn’t matter what other people feel about my choices, because there will always be someone who approves and who does not approve. I am now of the mindset that what is important is that I do what I feel is right. Right now, I feel strongly that I want to be a technical writer. However, I also feel confident that if this career choice does not work out in the long run, I will find another path in life that works for me.