Being a senior kinda seems unreal. I came into college really thinking that I knew what all 4 years would like. Reminiscing on what it was like to be a Freshman does not seem like it was to far ago. Now, that I am finally near the end I realized a few things.
One, is that I did not know much about myself or the field that I choose to go into. I thought that I would just get accepted into college as a Food and Nutrition major and then work in a hospital. Shortly, after my freshman year I realized that I don’t want to be in a hospital but I still want to help people. It wasn’t until my junior year that I took a community nutrition class and a light bulb went off. I wanted to help people in the community but most places that I looked into doing internships were not paid or very little paid. The summer before my senior year I got a job in research and finally a huge light bulb went off. I finally discovered that I can combine both my love for people, community and innovation into doing nutrition research.
The second thing that I learned is that its okay to not know what you are going to do. The question I always hated was when people asked me “So, what are plans after college?” and my response always was “Defiantly work somewhere”. I really was not sure what I was doing early on in my college career let alone know what I was going to do for the rest of my life. Its okay tell people you are not sure, at least you are working on how to figure it out. You may not have all the right answers right now but you are going to figure it all out at the end and learn from experiences that you go through.
I also learned so much about my field and finally understand what’s out there. I thought nutrition was a small field and it is a pretty small community. What a lot of people do not know is that I can apple to so many different jobs with my degree. I can work in research, hospitals, nursing homes, food service or even start my own business. With that in mind I stop stressing about what jobs people would think I should have and started focusing on what I love about my field.
Everyone grows differently in college and it's all part of the process. Don’t stress about what other people think and start being yourself. Once, you start to learn more about who are and know more about your career choices then everything else will fall into place.
