Well I'm pretty sure it's official: I do not have a career in the world of academia. All my life, I've said that I want to go to graduate school, mainly because my mom did I think. But over the past week, it has been very clear to me that this is not the path God has for me. And that is ok!
I think I used to believe that graduate school meant that you went to school for longer to learn more stuff. But the deeper I get into my liberal arts degree, the more I'm realizing that going to graduate school would just mean that I would pay a lot of money to do research and write papers, telling people my ideas about the world. That does not sound attractive to me at all!
There's this fear in it - What if I don't have all of the information? What if I argue something that's false because there's more information I just haven't read yet? This fear plagues me even now with my papers. So instead of writing about my real thoughts and ideas, I find myself arguing only for the ideas I know I can defend well.
Yes, I know this isn't the point of higher education. The point is to research and study and form one's own ideas about how the world should be and how it functions. I'm only saying that I do not think I will be happy in graduate school. So if I ever start talking about it again, I want all of you to remind me of how I feel right now and really challenge me before I write any checks or sign any dotted lines.
All of my life I've worked so hard in school and I've really enjoyed it! But what I've enjoyed is being taught, I suppose - not actually the process of learning. So if I ever get a hankering to go back to college, I will probably get another bachelor's degree...or just stick to TED Talks and a lot of reading. That will be good enough for me :)
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