So, without lamenting on about my high school years (which now seem like such a long time ago), let me tell you a bit about Washington University in St. Louis, which is where I ended up after my years at Calhoun. Here at WashU, I started out as a pre-med student, aspiring to become a doctor. However, since then, I've changed my mind half a dozen times as to the major and the career I wanted to pursue. I've decided that I never really had any great desire or a pressing calling to be a doctor, and that I'd be much happier doing something I actually like. One bad part about this is the fact that now I have to figure out what I really want to do. I am halfway through my senior year, and I still don't quite know a clear answer to that. However, I have some ideas:
First of all, I have always loved languages, and when I came to WashU, I took many French courses b/c I wanted to continue learning this beautiful language in the hopes of speaking it fluently someday. It payed off, b/c not only did I get to go to France two summers ago (summer of '98), which was a total blast, but I am only 3 credits away from making it my major. So, I thought, what the heck? I might as well major in French as my first major.
As for my second major, I have thought long and hard about it. At first, I thought I could major in Biology, and go into research. Then, that idea fell through, and I thought I could possibly do International Business, which, coupled with my extensive language skills, would be a good idea. However, I've never been very interested in business or thought of myself as a business woman. So, I recently finally made the decision to major in something I have always liked and enjoyed--namely, psychology. So, starting second semester of my junior year, I took a lot of psych courses, and I was lucky because I received credit for 2 of them which I had taken at a community college back in NY, during high school. Right now, I am pretty far along with both my majors. I also started a Business minor, but I after taking some of the required business courses, I decided that I had enough business background and that I'd much rather take some courses in enjoy my last semester of college. So next semester I will be taking an acting course and a photography course (both subjects have always fascinated me), aside from the rest of the courses I am required to take for my 2 majors. However, while taking these business courses, I discovered my love for law during the business law course I am currently taking. I never knew how interesting law could be, and I really enjoyed contract law, so who knows? I may consider going to law school in the future.
Next, I guess I ought to say something about my work experience. Over the years, I have worked as a saleswoman and cashier in 2 different shoe stores (which both went out of business), as a page in a library (for those of who don't know, that means just putting books away and arranging the shelves), as a photocopy assistant in the interlilbrary loan deparment of the Bernard Becker Medical Library on the med. campus. I also worked as a reserach assistant in a molecular oncology lab doing cancer research. Needless to say, I enjoyed that particular job more than I ever had any of my previous ones. It was incredibly interesting, it had much variety, and I could make my own hours, since I worked on my own project. All the people in that lab were incredibly nice, and it was just a great environment to work in. That's actually where I first got the idea to make research my life's passion. However, I don't think that I would be able to do that for the rest of my life, b/c I would much rather enjoy working with people, interacting with them, and helping them. Although doing research I could be helping people indirectly, there is not much human interaction at all involved in such a job; Therefore, last year I quit that job, and actually took this last summer off to go to Romania and have fun. When I returned, however, I started working in a department store, Dillard's, at the Galleria Mall. That job was short-lived, since I was quite busy with school and my hours there stayed horrific at the beginning of this semester (I was working 35-37 hrs/week, aside from having 19 credit hours in school, and also working in a psychology lab running an experiment). So I made some money while working at Dillard's, and now I intend to look for a job that's more in my field, for my last semester here at WashU.
I think that about covers what I've done thus far in my scholastic and professional life. I hope that in the future I will either be able to work as a professional psychologist, or maybe be able to utilize my language skills for something such as international relations, international business, or a travel-related career. Or, who can tell the future? Maybe I'll end up doing something totally different from what I had planned or thought I'd end up doing.