College: My Journey

Today’s post is from our regular Tuesday contributor, Sally.

Everyone has their own process for why they do things in life. Whether they take a certain route home or spend the weekend curled up and watching movies; to bigger choices by deciding whether or not to have kids or buy a new car.

For many high-schoolers when it comes to big decisions, often some of the first they make will occur when they’re in their Junior year – mainly, deciding to go to college and then having to go through the prep-work for all of it.

There are the SATs, the ACTs, visiting schools you are interested in, trying to shadow people in careers you may be interested in and looking at different career paths. Talking to your high school guidance counselor, adding volunteer and extra-curricular activities to your resume, and trying to figure out how to make yourself stand out from all of the other students applying. Then there is actually deciding what colleges you are interested in – which make the cut for a visit, which offer the best scholarships, which have the best programs for the degree you think you would like to do? It can definitely be a lot.

I’m not sure where in the process I kind of fell out. My siblings and many of my peers all seemed to follow along that path and then boom, they all just knew where they were going. I thought I knew. I DID know. But somewhere between taking my ACT and the application process, I didn’t take the time to really delve into my future. It was a more fly-by-the-pants-I’m-interested-in-this sort of view with a lot of opinionated people in the background giving me advice.

I ended up only applying to two colleges – and one of them I had absolutely zero interest in attending. I didn’t apply to that school for myself, I applied to that one to sate other people. The school I really wanted to attend was amazing. I loved it. I still do. I fell in love with the campus and brick buildings, how liberal the school was and how conservative the town was. I fell in love with it. And I had fallen in love with it when I was a junior and my boyfriend attended it.

When everyone found out that that was where I was going to school, it was immediately eye-rolls and statements of me attending that University only because he was there. While that was a nice perk we’ll say (although he transferred to another University three weeks before the school year started), I was also looking at how great of a school it was – and they were letting me go to school there. Their programs are extremely intense and my ACT score was two points lower than their average, but I had been successful in high school and I believed this University would put me on a successful path to my future career – Primatology.

That’s the study of apes. Specifically, I wanted to work with gorillas. My declared undergrad degree at my first University was Anthropology and Communications, with minors in American Sign Language and French. I then had plans to receive my masters in Primatology. I tacked on French because it is a common language spoken in Africa where I wanted to do fieldwork; I also did ASL because as I’ve said in previous posts, ASL fascinated me plus if I could do a research study and teach a gorilla ASL, that would be a dream. Not going through with that school and career path for myself is a regret I try to not spend a lot of time thinking about. I was told I  needed to be realistic with my career and that what I had chosen for myself was not realistic at all. If I had pushed through for myself and prevailed, I’d be graduated and working in the field already.

But obviously, I’m not. I figured out quickly that I was not as prepared for college as I thought. I struggled with classes my first year at school, listened to people doubting my degree choice, and was an emotional wreck after  flipping my car into a ditch that February. I was ready to break. So when people started to talk to me about changing my degree again, I did. To ASL Interpreting. Which also meant that I needed to transfer schools, so I did that as well.

I also loved my second school – not as much though. It only offered an Associate’s degree but that was all I needed in order to be certified as an ASL interpreter. That changed however, pretty quickly after I got there. The year I was to graduate was the year federal law was changing to only allow people with a Bachelor’s degree to be certified. I took this as my chance to try the whole “applying to college thing” over again and took my time figuring out where I wanted to go and actually took the time to visit them.

Graduating seniors from my sorority

No regrets. I left behind some great teachers and mentors, but I also gained new ones. As well as a four-year degree comprised of three majors. On a daily basis I knew I was in the right place. There were struggles of course, but they all seemed so so so worth it.

And while I may not exactly be following the career path I thought I would be, I’m also extremely happy and have been given amazing opportunities. It’s not how I imagined my life would be, but I still love it. And that’s what I think is so important – that you love your life.