While taking a break from the stream of projects here at work, I came across a post titled Already Worrying written by Kyle Dylan Conner. To sum it up, he’s considering applying to colleges but is worried about living on his own in New York or Philadelphia. It got me thinking about my experience applying to colleges UC.
Yes, I applied to one school. I always feel like an idiot (or some type of a douche) when people ask where I applied, and respond simply with UC. Kids in highschool gave me crap about it, and even a couple teachers seemed let down. Why would I leave my entire future up to a single piece of paper? Because for the first time in my life, I knew exactly what I wanted to be.
I went through the majority of my highschool career thinking I wanted to go the University of Cincinnati, and become an engineer. I liked math, because I was good at it, and it came to me pretty easily. Because engineering requires math skills, the easy decision was to become an engineer. UC was the obvious choice for college because it was close to home, has a great co-op program, and my parents are alumni. So it was settled, I would become an engineer… or so I thought.
I attended an information session about engineering at UC, and was so bored out of my mind I didn’t know what to do with myself. Nothing felt right. The students up front talking about their major, and all the cool things they were doing were not people I wanted to be like. Nothing against engineers, my cousin is a great one, but it just wasn’t for me. I felt like I was lost, and I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life.
Looking back, its quite obvious to me that I should have considered some alternative careers. By sophomore year in highschool, I would rarely complete math assignments, just enough to get the concepts (or the grades, if completion was required) and would constantly find myself figuring out new concepts on actual tests and quizzes. Yet my favorite classes were journalism and web design. I had already ruled out journalism as a potential major because I didn’t really enjoy writing about things around the school, but I found my niche in the school newspaper as the graphics editor my sophomore year. The following year I became managing editor and we put out some great issues with well-written articles, interesting spreads, and fantastic opinions/reviews. I decided not to return to the paper for my senior year after some internal censorship issues regarding a cover illustration I did and the unrelated resignation of our advisor. And so, senior year began, with no clear career in sight.
I knew UC had a really good design school, and arcitechture seemed like the perfect balance between art and math. I signed up for another information session at UC , and made the short trek to see if I could create buildings for the rest of my life. I made it through the entire presentation, including question and answer, before I realized I hadn’t seen a single model, drawing, or picture of a building. This was not the architecture tour. I had been on the industrial design tour the entire time. Everything was so cool, and interesting, and the student giving the tour talked about his co-op at hasbro, and other cool jobs his friends had. I liked what these people were doing, who they were, and I wanted to be one of them.
Explaining to my parents that I wanted to be a designer, based on this tour that I fell into because I got lost and was late getting to UC, was kind strange. Although it wasn’t quite what they had in mind for me, they were extremely supportive, and based on the early application process and my current grades and test scores, I was almost guaranteed a spot in the program. So I mailed in one application, and felt all the worry about what I wanted to be just melt away.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that you will find your place, possibly when you least expect it. Or maybe its not even about finding your place, but finding the confidence, inspiration, or ideas you need to succeed and do what you want to do.
I can’t help but think about Will Smith’s character in I am Legend and how he drove around listening to “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” all day, even though he was living in the one of the worst situations imaginable. All he had was his dog, surrounded by a lot of nothingness, but he still stayed motivated. He kept doing what he was good at, despite the fact that his future was as unclear as everyone else.