My first month of college I called my mom and told her I wanted to drop out. I based my university abilities on one thing only, and that was how well I could conquer college algebra math without a calculator. I could hear the doubtful whispers of the Virginia Beach Public School system creeping into my mind, “you’re not smart enough to be here, you don’t know how to solve math.” I gave in. I told my mom for the millionth time in my life, that I was stupid; whole heartily, tearfully, angrily, wished I had a smarter brain at birth, meant it more than I had ever meant it in my entire life, at that moment. I was always told by my mother that college was a place to become someone, not something.
I didn’t quite understand that concept until I started to realize the diverse reasons why other students were attending the same university I was. Coming from a family that valued education highly, a family of writers, engineers, doctors and professional artists, I was not sure I could live up to their finish lines so to speak, let alone the qualifications. I had a family heritage to live up to, not a university of people around me to beat or impress.
I was crying tears of joy in the library because I had taught myself long division again without a calculator. This was the moment I realized what it meant to be someone to nobody but a piece of paper. I was still here at university, I did not vanish because I could not do something, instead I stayed because of exactly that. I was experiencing what the concept of math truly meant, in all its beauty, in the excitement of spending hours on an equation. The million eraser marks across the table with scattered notebook paper, dark grey pencil outlines of algebra equations stamped on my hand, and my open laptop for the next math module. A silent room filled with people, but I could hear my loud satisfied smile and thumping heartbeat screaming “Did you just see that?”…. I was an English major teaching myself mathematical equations without a calculator. And I loved every second of it.
I was destined to become a student in love with academia no matter what shape it came in. The most heartbreaking truth about becoming that student, is that students like me are going extinct, an endangered species; The students that attend university for the thrill of academia rather than just a piece of paper that cannot truly promise a job and its prospects. Students in college are taught to not follow academic interests, but rather academic preparedness. Which enables most of the conversational difference of what is an interest and a passion? Many people, not just young college students, are confused by the difference between following an interest versus following a passion. Following interests in college is what brings students the ability to not only learn on a more complex platform, but to appreciate the process of what it means to learn. Students are expanded academically, spiritually, and emotionally like never before in university. It is likely for a student to halt their growth because they were told to “follow their passion.” This might sound confusing because wouldn’t we want to follow our passions? The answer is actually no. It’s about following different paths of interests. Think about following an interest in this aspect: growing a plant takes time, it starts in the ground, and it eventually reaches the surface of the Earth and even then it takes more time, resources, and help to make sure this plant is still the plant you want by the time it’s fully grown. If the plant is in the middle of its stages of growing and you decide it’s not actually the plant you wanted anymore, you take it out of the ground and create a new plant. Think about passion in this aspect: You buy a plant 100% full grown because somewhere along the line you heard this plant was THE PLANT of all the plants, but once you plant it, it’s very hard to get rid of it for good. The roots are so deep, the leaves are so thick, and the trunk is so heavy. Then you realize it’s not truly the plant you wanted and now you wish you tried other small plants instead because it might’ve helped you figure out other options to grow into.
According to Inside Higher Ed and Stanford News Service , it’s not so much about finding passion, but cultivating or developing it through the use of multiple interests. These “interests” do not have to closely resemble the current position you hold at work, the major you have declared in school or even expectations held around you. These “interests” are like little paths that life holds before us. They may seem unorthodox, random, not worth the journey; but yet an intuition tells us “why not?” and we end up in places surrounded by people in which we become pleasantly surprised, all because there was an interest in a path that developed into a passion. It is not a light gesture or step by step process that happens over night. In fact, it takes hard work and determination to foster an interest into a passion. There are twists and turns, ups and downs, but isn’t that the whole point?
Once the passion develops, the love for the twists and turns arises. The love for the downs develops just as much as the ups. As an English major I can declare that there is beauty in rhetoric because it’s as if it’s the illusion of language. I do not say I hate Math. Instead I find beauty in its symbols as it is a form of language and rhetoric itself. Maybe in some way I was still learning English, just through Mathematical equations. I just had to find my interest within it.