As I’m sure many can relate, senior year of high school rolled around and I felt like I was trudging through mud and running through quicksand all at once to get college applications done while staying on top of my schoolwork. Therefore, when my first college acceptance letter came in, with a financial aid letter of half of tuition scholarship – half! – I thought I had scored a jackpot. I immediately rescinded my other applications to go to a small school wherein I would travel abroad my very first semester, and every semester after that, and earn a degree in Global Studies.
Let it be known: I didn’t necessarily want a liberal arts degree. I had always wanted to go into a STEM field and become a woman for little girls to look up to and make big advancements in science. When I accepted the offer, I’d thought, “With this degree, I can get a government job, and then transfer and have the government pay for me to go back to school so I can do what I want.” See the problem?
Eventually, things went worse and worse during my time abroad: I was trying to take science classes because I missed them, but they wouldn’t transfer, and my mental health took a steep dive. In comes me, crying in a bathroom in some hostel in Central America because I’m feeling so overwhelmed and exhausted and unfulfilled by my liberal arts classes. I didn’t heed the warning signs when I took countless personality tests costing me hundreds of dollars to determine what my major in college should be (they all said some sort of scientist or doctor). I didn’t heed the warning signs when my future plan changed to the government paying for me to go back to school after I’d already done four years of it.
I had to swallow a lot of my pride when I told my parents I was transferring. I was so sure of myself when I first got that letter in October, and now had to face the consequences I hadn’t considered: that there was something out there that was a better fit for me. My dad was so mad that I was scared to go home for Christmas break because I didn’t want him to yell at me when all I wanted to do was go back in time and change my decision.
One year later, I’m sitting in my freshman dorm room at a university based solidly within the United States. I’m majoring in Biomedical Engineering and absolutely loving it, my schedule jam-packed between biology, engineering, and chemistry lectures and their respective labs. I couldn’t see where my rash decision in senior year would make me end up, but with my friends – old and new – supporting me and my family happy that I’ve chosen a path that fulfills my dreams, I know it’ll be something I’ll want to go home and tell everyone about.