As college students, we don’t know the clearest life path to take. With the pressures of picking a major and classes, and choosing the difference between right and wrong, often times we feel lost. When people ask us what we want to do when we get older, we don’t always have the answer. And if we do, sometimes we just say what we think people want to hear.
Sometimes when I tell family members or family friends that I plan to be a journalist, I often hear that I am majoring in a dying field. The one thing that I know to be true is that I have wanted to be a journalist since I was a little girl. Yes, times may have changed, but it is still what I like to do. So when you ask me what I plan to do in the future, the answer is journalism.
At times, I do feel lost myself. I never know what courses I should take, what to write my articles about, where to find my sources for journalism, or even what outfit to wear for the day. At some point, I think every student has felt similar to how I feel.
We don’t have it all figured out. That is what makes life interesting. Taking the unknown path. When you plan your life out in every detail, you don’t allot time for adventure.
The good thing about the unknown is that there are people placed throughout your life to help you along your journey. I have advisors to help me with my educational path, family to help me through my emotional path (and basically everything else), and friends to help me with my social path. We have loved ones and guides to help us when we don’t know how to help ourselves.
Along our journey, we will meet people who think they know exactly how their life is going to go. But even those people will reach a bump in their journey, an obstacle they didn’t expect, a situation they don’t know how to handle, and they will realize that life is filled with unexpected moments, mystery and the unknown.
My mom always tells me that in life, things don’t go the way you want them to. At college, this is most definitely true. At one moment you will find yourself confident in your work, your studying, your social life, and the next day everything can be the opposite.
So yes, it is perfectly okay if you do not know what you’re doing, what path to take, or where you plan to end up. Look to those people placed in your life for advice, remember to weigh your options and outcomes, and always make time for adventure and memories.
Robert Frost once said, “Two roads diverged in a wood and I took the one less traveled by and that has made all the difference.” You don’t have to follow the path of others because you think they know what they're doing. You need to pave your own untraveled path to make the most out of life.
