I'm Just Trying To Figure Out My Future

Where am I going? What am I doing? How do I become an adult? These are the questions daunting my second-semester junior year of college brain. My last year of college life is quickly approaching (much sooner than I’m ready for).

So where can my degree take me? I’m pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Multimedia Journalism with a concentration in magazine, and a minor in Marketing. Clearly, my studies are very communications based, but what does that actually mean for me when I leave school?

Recently, I chose my classes for the fall semester of my senior year (SAY WHAT?!). There’s nothing like that rush you get when you are frantically searching your course codes on the school’s database, and then going back to find your ‘runner-up’ choice of class because your first pick filled up, and so on and so forth until you have formulated the perfectly timed and selected schedule. But the fact that my senior year is my last chance to get all of my requirements completed (if I want to graduate on time, which I DO), adds a whole new aspect of frantic. Thankfully, I was able to maneuver my remaining credits and classes around to fit for the upcoming semester (with a day off, may I add). Oh, and I applied to graduate, which gave me a mix of excitement, relief, and pure terror (am I really ready to leave school?).

Well, here’s the thing, I’m not actually sure if I want to leave school (I mean I know I want to leave my current college after I graduate), I possibly want to go to graduate school and get a master’s degree. “But a Master’s in what?” you may ask… well, I’m pretty sure I’d like to study business. I have been told many times by former professors and other students that there is not much of a point in getting a master’s in journalism. So, I’m figuring business will be quite useful in wherever life takes me in my career, (that is if I go to grad school).

If I choose to not take the grad school route, well where am I going? I hope to get a paid internship or entry-level job in my field as soon as possible following graduation. Yet, after having a taste of living in Europe for the year (I’m studying abroad at the moment), I’d love to look for opportunities in journalism and communications overseas. With my mindset for my future being global rather than desiring to stay where I’m from (Chicago), it opens up an entire world (literally) of opportunities, whether it be to further my education or begin a career.

Whatever I may choose, I’m not going to worry about it for the time being. I want to enjoy my last year of college with the friends I have made along the way (and work my butt off). No, I do not have all of my ducks in a row just yet, and that’s okay, because I’m still figuring out what I want my future to look like.