23 September 2011

grad school make me mad skool

So, I don't have much to do here for the next 10 days because the kids are on holiday. This hasn't been a problem for me because I've been taking it easy, maybe too easy. I take a lot of time getting ready for the day and getting ready for bed. I take nice walks around the neighborhood taking pictures of people and trying out new foods, cautiously of course. I'm also at the internet cafe for a good chunk of time but doing productive things like . . . blogging . . . and researching grad schools and filling in applications and writing essays. Well, I knew all this alone time would catch up to me and I'm actually starting to feel the tiniest bit lonely. I'm also starting to wonder how I possibly graduated from BYU so much earlier than a lot of my friends. I guess I've just been pondering what I did at BYU and what I'm supposed to do for grad school.
For some reason, I feel guilty about not doing some things in my undergrad:
  • I never took a political science class because I don't like politics and I don't particularly like defending my opinion
  • I wish I had taken more Italian classes since, after all, I'm technically a "linguist."
  • I should have tried out more elective courses like a film class. Astronomy? Wilderness survival?
  • Why didn't I do more internships?
Ok, so I'm feeling down. The rainy day doesn't help, either.

Last night, I had this discussion with myself asking if I had taken the easy way out. I switched from Communication Disorders to Linguistics my sophomore year. Basically, I didn't like my classes nor my classmates very much in CommD, so I attended a linguistics course and decided it was more dynamic and a better learning environment for me. It really was, but I wanted to be a speech pathologist every since high school. Did I quit speech path just because it was getting hard and a little bit unbearable? I really did enjoy every linguistics class though, and I made good friends and had good study partners. Also, my teachers were crazy. In one class, our final was to present a poster on the term paper we had written, but I really didn't feel like making a poster so I made a cake instead and still got an A because my teachers valued "interpretation of language." The point is, despite the fun I've had in linguistics, I can't do anything with a bachelor's in it, not even a master's.

Luckily, I did an editing minor, which I can do a lot with. My current plan is to go to grad school for journalism in the magazine editing and designing field. I suppose grad school is to make up for our guilt (there's probably a better word for it than guilt) of undergrad. A lot of courses in the grad program are designed around ethics and politics, so political science--check. I'll just use my mum's Rosetta Stone for Italian, Italian--check. And I'll interview astronomers and wilderness survival kids for beats and stories, electives--check. And I'll have to do an internship before I can get accepted, most likely, internship--check.

I still might change my mind, though.

2 comments:

kelly said...

it's hard to be away from the comforts of home but you are doing an amazing thing you will remember the rest of your life! i think you will be great at whatever you do but if you want to go into speech path then do that for your masters, be happy with what you do! your 20's are for figuring out your life and what path you want to take! don't worry, you'll figure it out!

STEVEN WAGGONER said...

Well, you can also feel lame on the other end of undergrad graduating timelines. I started college in 2003. A lot of people my age and younger have masters degrees or more, or they started a stupid virtual social world and have billions of dollars. Billions of lonely Zuckerberg dollars. Meanwhile, I get to tell everyone, "I'm almost 27, and maybe I'll graduate college soon".

You are good at college, so I'm sure that a masters will be like making a new cake recipe for you.

Great photos by the way Jessica. Can we talk face to face like when I was in a foreign land on the other side of earth, please?