As I sit and ponder the rest of my senior year and life after graduation, I think about how you are practically forced to decide what you want to do for your career at a really young age. Yet, you’re reminded that your brain doesn’t fully develop until you are in your mid twenties. I changed my dream of what I want to do in the middle of my senior year of college, and I’m not worried. I feel this abrupt change has helped me find myself.
For a few years I had thought I wanted to go to law school. It was only a few months ago I decided that I would not be happy in that field. I had worked hard towards that dream, so it was weird to come to the realization that it didn’t fit anymore. How did I decide not to go to law school anymore? Well it took a while. I sought guidance from former law students, current law students, and people who work in law. I fell down the whole rabbit hole. I thought about the issues they had taught about law for a long-time to know I would be hurting myself if I tried to mold myself into a person that could handle it. Additionally, I have had a change of heart in how I want my career to be. The prospect of sitting down to analyze pages and pages of a case doesn’t feel right to me anymore. I think one of the biggest realizations I had was that just because I love to read, doesn’t mean I would love law. Lastly, this world has enough issues to deal with as it is; I don’t want to deal with toxic law culture on top of everything else in this world. I don’t want to work within traditional systems of law, and I don’t have the aspirations to try to change it within any longer. With all of that being said, it is okay because my minor has directed me towards an ideal graduate program. Therefore, there are still doors waiting when you feel you are in need of a different direction.
I wanted to write about this because I think it can be scary to gain a change of mind. I think we often assign ourselves to characters, that our personality is only standstill, and so sometimes it can be hard to see yourself change directions to a new life path. It was better for me to realize I didn’t want to pursue law school now than after I committed. But it’s okay to make mistakes and change at any time. I find change much more suitable than trying to fit an idealized version of myself. If you pursue another dream, and it isn’t what you hoped, in the words of Flynn Rider from Tangled, “Well, that’s the good part, I guess. You get to go find a new dream.”