I remember sitting on my grandmother's sofa three years ago, quietly absorbing the conversation between her and some family friends. They were animatedly discussing "kids these days," among other universal matters of adulthood. I distinctly recall one of them lamenting, "kids don't know what they want these days. When you ask them, they get this stupid look on their face."
I had smugly agreed with his sentiments at the time, secretly reveling in the fact that I had always applied myself and been a straight-A student in school--not like those other kids who were glued to the TV screen and had game consoles for appendages.
Like most kids, I had lofty, definitive dreams, which I was determined to pursue. At seven I had decided that I was going to make a killing as a bestselling author. At 12 I wanted to get into Harvard. In my early teen years, I wanted to be a professional singer and recording artist.
As my junior year of high school came to a close, however, I realized that the threshold for decisiveness was spread thin and the veil of certainty had all but vanished. My creative writing portfolio was a barren wasteland of unfinished projects, scattered papers, and long-forgotten spurts of genius as I, in my perfectionist's eye view, struggled to stay committed to one story idea at a time. Remnants of nagging stage fright combined with chronic introversion prevented me from pursuing professional vocal performance full-time. And I was no closer to thinking about higher education than I was about what I was going to eat for breakfast the next day.
Even from the safety net that was my first year of college I could feel the pressure mounting as I would almost apologetically inform family members that I was "thinking about" pursuing a double-major in English and history. The tinge of disappointment in their countenances at my apparent lack of seriousness was a resounding blow in light of their sheer delight at my younger sister's expressed interest in marine biology. Her goals were clear, intelligent, and tangible, not to mention the return on her investment would prove rewarding. Meanwhile, I just couldn't articulate the connections between my understanding of John Donne's poetry and a promising career path. I was a wayward passenger boarding a confused train of thought on the one-way trip toward becoming a barista.
In about two months I'll be heading into my second year of college. While I still don't have everything figured out, I now realize the importance of having a universal skill-set and have since taken the initiative of enhancing my strengths and improving my weaknesses. For example, this summer I'm making a disciplined effort to continue my current writing project and building my portfolio, while taking online courses in Excel, marketing, and information technology. I've even taken up the ropes in computer programming, a skill that I've wanted to learn for a while now.
This is the beauty of the liberal arts approach to a career path, whether you're a liberal arts student or not. One of the first pieces of advice we are given as liberal arts students is to explore a wide variety of different courses that are more or less disciplines rather than specialties. In an ever-changing economy, where specific jobs and trades once revered by older generations are going overseas, I would argue that college students should exercise more uncertainty and caution than ever. The liberal arts places an emphasis on developing a broad, transferable, universal range of skills, such as communication, critical thinking, and research skills to adapt to a plurality of fields rather than one specific field that may disappear in time. With this in mind, you can become a master of all trades. Don't just tolerate uncertainty; embrace it with open arms.
