What Do I Want to do with My Life

I went to University directly from Gr.12 because I didn't know what else to do, and I had enough scholarships that I didn't have to pay for tuition. I didn't want to go to College because it it has a more vocational focus, and I wasn't nearly ready to make any decisions about a career. I had so many interests that I didn't know what I wanted to do, so I figured University would be a better match for me at the time.

The transition from high school to university for me was a drastic one. I'd been to a small high school in a small town. I lived on a farm, some distance away from the nearest biggest city of 75,000 people. So you can imagine that moving to a city with 352,000 people and going to a university with 30,000 students with 4,000 first years alone was pretty scary.

I was used to the quiet lifestyle of going to school, coming home on the bus, doing my homework and going to bed. I never really went anywhere because there was nothing to do. I had never been on a city bus before or taken a cab.

Upon arrival, I was immediately thrown into turmoil with all the events and things to do that first week. I had to get used to a more fast-paced environment, and it wasn't easy at first. I hated it. It took a while, but I eventually did get used to it and came to love it.
And now, I can’t imagine living somewhere where I can’t call for pizza delivery at any time of the night or be within 2 minutes walking distance from whatever kind of food or entertainment I could want.

I graduated from University this summer and will start a Communications and Public Relations program at College in the fall. University education is very broad, especially if you major in English. I don't even know where to start looking for a job that will take advantage of all I've learned in the last few years. People from my family say things like, "I don't see how all that time and all that money has helped you find a real job", or, "so you still don't know what you want to do". So it's all been a waste of time, right?

Wrong. Humanities graduates do get good jobs. True, there's no straight line, as in Nursing or Engineering. It takes a little more time, and there's no direct route. But I know that I'm a far stronger person now because of what I've done in the last years. Maybe it'll be hard to make a direct connection, but I know that I'll analyze situations and synthesize answers in a way that someone else couldn't. Especially situations involving human beings, which when you come to think about it is most of them.

The annoying questions won't stop for a while. I have learned to be immune to them though. I've had a lot of experience coping successfully with complex situations with lots of uncertainty and lots of potential solutions. This is just another one along the way.

And now I do feel ready to start getting trained for a job. A College course in Communications and Public Relations: that's what I'm doing in September. Don't tell me that what I did in my English Major won't be any use. It will.