When starting college, it’s important to know one thing: your major. When I was applying to colleges, I had found a major that may have fit me. I liked cultures, geography, history, language, and, of course, Germany. I really did well in social studies in school, and I wanted a way to continue social studies in the future. I also did really well in foreign language. I took French in high school and did a little bit of German learning on my own. I took to it quite easily. I started the search to find a major that would fit all, if any, of those interests. Someone recommended I look into anthropology. Of course, I had heard of anthropology, but I didn’t know what it was. I looked up what it meant, and it said ‘the study of man.’ At the time, I was confused. I thought it was purely biological and that I would be studying the ways humanity has lived and how they’ve progressed in biology. It wasn’t until I took General Anthropology my Freshman year that I realized it was much more than that.
When colleges came to my high school for College Night, I thought I wanted to do journalism. I put journalism on all the interest cards for the schools that didn’t have anthropology. Most all of the schools I looked at didn’t have anthropology. The University of Oklahoma did. The only school that got back to me from College Night was the University of Oklahoma. They kept me updated on student life and even told me how to apply. I really appreciated their efficiency in recruiting students. As senior year progressed, I began to look into anthropology more. I finally decided to keep anthropology as my major.
One of the biggest driving forces that kept me toward anthropology was my love of the German culture. I didn’t know much about it at the time – only that their language was beautiful and they made good music. Nonetheless, I really wanted to look into the German culture. So, at first, I had a great interest in socio-cultural anthropology. There was another thing I really liked and wanted to pursue from my major. I wanted to work in a museum. I loved going to museums, so naturally, working in one sounded like the best job in the world. I thought of it as being like Indiana Jones. Of course, museum work isn’t anything like Indiana Jones.
During freshman year, I took four anthropology classes. My general anthropology class convinced me to continue taking anthropology. I wasn’t too thrilled to be taking biological anthropology – at first. I didn’t do well in biology in high school, and I was worried the class wouldn’t be to my liking. However, as the semester progressed, I grew to love biological anthropology. I really enjoyed some of the things we did in that class. Another class I took was an archaeology course. I really like archaeology, and have chosen archaeology to be my career after college. The class was fascinating. I also took general linguistics. At first, it seemed rather difficult. There were parts of language that I didn’t understand. There were parts that made it seem impossible. The class did prove to be useful and very fun, though. I really like language, and I even decided to minor in it at the end of the semester!
Linguistics isn’t my only minor. I also decided to minor in German. With linguistics, I can focus on historical linguistics and German is important to me because I plan to live in a German-speaking country.
So, after all the consideration and all the planning, I’ve decided to keep anthropology and add on minors. This is all important, because they all contribute to my future career. I want to study medieval Germanic language and cultures. I’ve finally found what I want to do, and it’s only my sophomore year.
