My freshman and sophomore years of college were completed online, where I lived at home with my mom, my sister, and my orange tabby cat Sage. One morning, I walked to a local coffee shop I had never tried before to see if I felt any differently about the taste of matcha. I didn’t. I still can’t get it down.
As I made my way back home, a man I’d never met before stopped to ask me if I was in college and if I had an interest in social media or the communications field. At the time, I was hopeful to transfer into the Advertising/Public Relations (AD/PR) program at the University of Central Florida. Of course, I was eager, and I said yes! He took my number and said he would reach out to me. It turned out that he needed a social media coordinator for his sculpting business, and I couldn’t believe I had basically gotten a job offer off the street.
The following days after that, he ended up reaching out to me, but I felt a boding sense of panic rise beneath the surface of my skin. Sure, I was planning to major in the communications field, and yes, I’d been posting on social media since the 5th grade, but that was totally different from running a company’s social media page.
I technically hadn’t learned a single thing about how to run a social media page, what the best practices were, or what strategies to use. I didn’t even know if these things were going to be a part of my major. There were so many things I didn’t know.
I ended up backing out. I told him that while I appreciated the opportunity, there must have been someone more qualified to implement what he was asking of me. When I’d told my mom I turned the job down, she asked me a burning question: “Do you really know what you want to do?”
That panic swelled up inside me again, more intense this time. My mind raced with thoughts I avoided thinking about. Was I just biding my time in college, delaying the inevitability of me just wandering around searching, but never knowing what made me passionate about life?
I thought about the hundreds of things I wanted to do, the hundreds of things I wanted to be: a florist, a publicist, a Pre-K teacher. Maybe I wanted to dabble in ceramics, be a creative director, or a writer. All of these options, and I was expected to pick one at the ripe age of 19.
I sat there on my couch, sobbing at the realization of my reality. I was devastated at the idea of a society that demands you to be one thing for the rest of your life, and nothing else. I wish I could say that after this moment of panic, this blunder, I came out the other side resolute in my purpose. Unfortunately, as I walked across the stage to get my AA degree, I still felt the underlying uneasiness that never seemed to leave me.
When I transferred to UCF that next fall semester, I started taking my classes to apply for the AD/PR program. After about a month and a half in, I was beginning to feel out what I liked and didn’t like about the career path I was taking, and if I even wanted to take it at all.
I spoke to my mother again about the rigidity of the classes I was taking. I told her how I liked the foundation, but I was a creative at heart, and I craved theory and depth. I complained to her over the phone, “…I like what I’m learning. But I miss writing.”
Writing was a faraway hobby of mine that I had left behind in my childhood. I used to write songs, poetry, and stories before I got caught up in the throes of online media consumption, but never creation. I decided to look outside my college of discipline and look towards the arts and humanities for my minor.
A couple of weeks later, I decided to register for the classes required to complete the writing and rhetoric minor within UCF’s English department. Now, as I’m going into my senior year of college, I feel clearer about where I am in my academic and professional career. I didn’t end up getting into the AD/PR program, but it wasn’t a hard pivot into communications. Along the way, I also earned a Mass Media minor from the experience.
In those two years of uncertainty, I came out the other side realizing that I was a writer at heart, not just a social media coordinator. Still, that didn’t mean those skills couldn’t apply to social media, book publishing, copywriting, or press for an art gallery. The transferable skills I once feared would leave me stranded ultimately became a strength I hadn’t recognized at the time.
As a result of this, I’ve determined I can make a career out of anything I want. My career path doesn’t have to be one thing for five years until the next corporate ladder is rung, but lots of different things without discarding my passions. I’ve learned that having a strong, sure foundation with my life’s passions orbiting around me is the best space to be in.