Up until November of last year, my future was clear — a straight path, set in stone… I’d apply for a PhD in Clinical Psychology, become a therapist, and everything would be fine. It was a logical plan, a practical one. However, one morning, a Philosophy grad student came to one of my classes to talk about her thesis; it was just one moment, a 30-minute talk, and it changed everything.
She began her presentation and it felt like someone had poured a bucket of cold water down my back. I had this immediate knee-jerk reaction, like finally here was what I’d been looking for my whole life: this moment, this feeling. I lived it and watched it at the very same time — like watching a memory form in real time, knowing even then that it would change everything. Her passion was crystal clear, it was obvious she loved what she was doing. And in that moment, I decided that’s who I want to be, this is what I want the rest of my life to feel like.
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And so, dear reader, you might imagine how this realization felt… It was the first semester of my fifth (and last) year of college; I was in the home stretch, the end was so close I could almost taste it, and yet… everything I thought I knew suddenly shifted. I started spiraling in class, I texted my friends, my girlfriend, my sister, my dad, everyone got a notification from me. Every text was slightly different, but the message was clear, I’m almost crying in class because I think I want to study Philosophy?
They must have all thought I was crazy, my dad especially so, but it felt so obvious to me, so natural. How could I have ever thought of doing anything but this? Considering everything, they reacted well. My girlfriend was the loudest voice of them all — she told me she’d always wondered why I’d chosen Psychology, not Philosophy, for grad school, despite having majored in both.
I have to be honest, she made a valid point. Why hadn’t I considered it before? Well, mostly because Psychology made more sense practically. It was the logical next step. If you major in Psychology, continuing those studies in grad school is pretty much a given, since you can’t practice with just a bachelor’s degree. But I never felt quite entirely confident in that choice; I just chose it because it felt like it had already been chosen for me. See, at that point, I’d been trying to write my admission essay for the PhD in Clinical Psychology for weeks and weeks and weeks to no avail. I simply couldn’t figure out, much less write about, why I wanted to become a therapist.
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Now, a few days later, after deciding I wanted to at least apply, I sat down to write my admission essay for the MA in Philosophy. And here’s the amazing part: I finished it in just a couple of hours. The words flowed and flowed, almost like they’d been in the back of my mind all along, just waiting for the rest of me to catch up. And oh, did I catch up.
After finishing my essay and getting all the required documents sorted out, I submitted my application and haven’t looked back. As I write this article, I haven’t heard back regarding my application, but so much has changed since I flipped all my plans upside down. Suddenly, I had this drive in me, this motivation; I was excited about my future, which was a foreign concept to me (seeing as I’d found myself panicking about it much more frequently). I became more involved in extracurriculars; I (willingly) presented an article at our department’s World Philosophy Day (I’d never chosen to give a presentation in my life), I submitted an abstract to a symposium, and I’m currently doing an internship at the Philosophy Department.
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Truly, this decision has already had such an impact on my life; I’ve learned to advocate for myself and what I want; I’ve put myself out there academically; I’ve worked alongside professors that so clearly love what they do; and I’ve learned to believe in myself. And while I don’t know what the future holds, I can confidently say I don’t regret ditching my old plans in favor of this journey that’s much less certain, but all the more exciting for being so.