By Jordan Hearne
Reporter
“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
Ferris Bueller said this. Why, then, does college demand you come in with running shoes, laced and tied, ready to sprint through the next four years of your life as quickly as possible?
This is my senior year. I will be graduating in May, if all goes well, with a nicely packaged major and minor combination specifically designed to get me a job as soon as possible. Don’t get me wrong – I love my major. On good days, I occasionally love my minor.
Lately, though, I have become a bit nostalgic.
As a kid, I liked bugs. That is actually a gross understatement. I loved bugs. I loved bugs so much that I had a shirt with plastic snap-on bugs that looked like they were crawling on me in real life. OK, I’ll admit it. I had two. I also had a giant box filled with plastic critters, seven different shapes and sizes of bug jugs, and a ladybug fanny-pack (it was the ’90s).
I grew up, packed away the fake bug collection and moved on to figuring out what to do with my life.
Now, at the end of my college career, all I can wonder is whether I made my decisions too quickly. Baylor has entomology classes for studying insects. I could have been a biology major. What stopped me from diving into that a little deeper? Maybe I was influenced by my family’s expectations or by the fancy programs accompanying each major. Perhaps I thought too much of what sounded practical.
The biggest tragedy of all is that I know it’s too late. My time has passed. Visions of caterpillars and grasshoppers are slipping away.
When I try to figure out how this happened, I remember first starting out my college career. I was asked a lot of questions. “What major are you?” “What do you want to spend the rest of your life doing?” These questions were about as simple as, “In 10 years, what will you be cooking for dinner?” I assure you, I was not about to answer any of these with, “Oh. Me? Well, I like bugs.”
So after unending interrogations, I caved. A major was suggested, and I ran with it. Of course, I then transferred to a different school during my freshman year, transferred back to Baylor and changed my major twice. Somehow, after all the necessary courses and university requirements, I made it. I’m almost done. Still, there are days when I doubt my decisions. There are moments when a cricket jumps in front of me that I think, “Maybe I should have studied you.”
I wonder if I hadn’t been so rushed to get my four-year plan started as soon as possible I would be where I am now. I’m not unhappy or tired of my major, I’m just curious.
All this said, I have a call to all of the new freshmen out there. Take a breather. Give yourself a minute, or five, to really look at your options. Above all, make sure what you’re doing makes you happy. You have time, so use it. As for all of you undecideds out there? Good job.
Jordan Hearne is a senior film and digital media major from Garland and is a reporter for the Lariat.
