Snapshots

This is how to choose your major

"I wanna be an astronaut!" I was nine years old and had just returned from school. I grabbed a juice box from the pantry and alternated between sipping and speaking while Mommy washed the dishes and listened patiently. "Today we learned about the solar system and other planets, and did you know Neptune is the prettiest blue you'll ever see? And how Jupiter has a lot of moons, I don't remember how many, but it's a lot, and how people walked on our moon, and did you know they're trying to go to Mars?"

Astronomical facts flowed out of my mouth like cold water from a hose. My world had grown a hundred times bigger that morning, and I had to know everything about it. I got books from the library about planets and nebulas and galaxies. I read about a girl who became an astronaut and got to walk on the moon. I took the tripod for Mommy's camera and stuck an aluminum foil-covered paper towel roll on top to create a telescope. I turned my loft bed into a spaceship with my homemade telescope, a swivel chair, old Christmas lights, planets I had colored and cut out myself taped onto the wall. I closed one eye and peeped the other through my telescope, staring at earth like a green and blue gumball.

"I'm gonna be an actress!" I was twelve years old and had just finished acting in my first play. I had fallen in love with the world of costumes, set pieces, and dramatic storytelling, and I wanted to do nothing else as long as I lived. "Maybe I can go to Julliard! What if I wrote my own plays? What if I owned my own theater? I'm gonna do it; I will!" Mom rolled her eyes, but I ignored her. What did she know? I could be an actress. It wasn't impossible.

I joined a drama club and learned about theater every Wednesday after school. I learned about the history of theater, about poetry and Shakespeare, and how to project instead of yell so that the audience could hear me better. I learned the difference between auditioning for the main character and auditioning for the character you want. I went to a used book store and bought a worn copy of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. The cover was falling off, the pages were thin and stiff with age, and it was very hard for me to understand Elizabethan English, but I read as often as I could.

"I'm gonna be a doctor," I said at fifteen years old. I had just finished watching an episode of Mystery Diagnosis with Grandma, and I was excited by the thought of being a type of detective, solving the mystery of people's illnesses.

Grandma told me that being a doctor was a good idea, and that since I was so smart I would be very good at it, and that I would make a lot of money and be able to live in a nice house and go on beautiful vacations. One day, she surprised me with a doctor's kit, complete with a roll of gauze, a thermometer, and a real stethoscope. I performed check-ups on my cousins, dolls, and stuffed animals. When I took my high school biology class that fall, I was fascinated with the different types of bacteria, how white blood cells were formed, and how to use a real microscope to look at pond water and strands of my own hair. A whole new world of discovery was open to me, and I was ready to explore.

"I don't know what I'm going to be," I said at eighteen years old, "but I know I'm going to study English." I had just signed up for my first semester of classes that morning at the state university, and Grandma wanted to know all about what I planned on doing with myself during and after college.

Grandma stared at me as if I had announced I wanted to be a gas station attendant. She asked me what made me change my mind, what I thought I could do with an English degree, how I would make enough money to live comfortably. All I could do was shrug my shoulders and wait for her to stop telling me what a mistake I was making.

Because I knew there was no mistake. The moment I stepped into the English building when I toured campus, I knew it was meant for me. I couldn't remember why I ever wanted to do anything in the medical field when I had the world of books and words and language to dive into. I wasn't sure what career I had in mind yet – maybe a teacher or an author or an editor – but I knew English just made sense. It gave me the wonder of becoming an astronaut, the thrill of becoming an actress, and the inquisitiveness of becoming a doctor. It made me passionate, and that – not large salaries, job stability, or familial support – is how to choose your major.