One day last week after coming in at 3 a.m. from the theater, my roommate said to me, "You try to do too much." I told her that if I quit some of the things I'm involved in, I'd just find others. I've been thinking about that, and I wonder if it's true. There are a lot of activities around campus I'd like to be involved in, very worthy things, but I doubt they'd all suit me. I can also easily find ways to fill my time which aren't productive. What I want to do, though, isn't fill my time -- I want to fill my life.
What does a full life look like? This is something I've tried to work through in different blog posts before, and I keep coming back to it. As someone who is planning on graduating, getting married, writing books, and having a family, the future looks full. As someone who has the choice between working on some important writing or getting on Pinterest, I need to consider how what I do now affects my dreams.
I'll totally use all these in the future!
Sure, I can waste an hour on the Internet. I can also fill an hour in the theater or getting homework done ahead of time or working on a craft project. Those last three are all productive. But are they getting me where I want to go? Are they helping me make my life what I want it to be? On a definite critical level, probably not. But if I skip those sorts of things, am I skipping over the stuff that really does make my life full?
Maybe I have too many other things to do right now to try and find answers. I need to search for an internship. I need to work on two writing projects which aren't my novel. In a couple of months I need to start planning my wedding.
Course of action: try to live in a way that I won't regret.
As a student at a private Christian liberal arts college, I have worries about my future. Not because I don't think I'm getting a quality education or that my experiences haven't been good for me, but because debt is scary. On top of that, I want to make a living writing stuff. What kind of plan is that?
This is one reason I'm a professional writing major. The idea is to learn the skills and business techniques necessary to work in a variety of writing careers. I haven't regretted this decision, but before I knew pro writing existed as a major, I considered other options.
I looked down the path of getting an English major as far as I could and took another road. I doubted if I should ever look back. I couldn't how imagine doing something I admittedly enjoyed -- reading cool stuff for four years -- would prepare me to get a job.
Now I think that may not be the point.
College nowadays has basically turned into career training, or even pre-training. There's some merit to this, but that has more to do with our society today than with education. I firmly believe that learning literature, philosophy, mathematics and science make you better because of what they do to your mind. This should help you in your career the same way it helps you in your life (says the 20-year-old undergrad). English majors, who study all kinds of writing from all periods of history and genres, are immersed in this on a level unequaled since when that was what education was. It's whole-person education to the core, since looking at what writers have been writing about through the ages is about as close to majoring in the universe as you can get, in my opinion.
Getting a job is a whole 'nother story. I admit, nowadays a paying job is kind of essential, at least for the kinds of people who go to college because we've been told it's what we need to do to get a job. In my ideal college situation, this whole education (which is basically what university means, by the way) would occur mixed in with all the important career training. Getting a degree, however, doesn't necessarily mean that's happened. (Read this interesting blog post from Art of Manliness and its accompanying comments for more on that head.) I also think there are a lot of people who aren't as good at teaching
themselves how to do things as teachers are (definitely true for me),
which is one reason the experience is important.
Of course, you should still consider whether the experience is worth it for the price. Consider the first two minutes of this video.
So, if college isn't the be-all, end-all solution for finding a job, why would someone even consider an English major, which (after underwater basketweaving) is becoming the poster major for pointlessness? In the words of the immortal Lizzie Bennet, "There are lots of business majors who can't get jobs right now.
There are no guaranteed careers for our generation, and since
everything's a risk, might as well take a risk on something you love."
So go study physics or microbiology or social work or writing or English -- not because it will get you a job, but because education is important.
