...

Very Similar

Trying to decide what I want to do with my life is perhaps the most daunting question that I face day to day. Whether I'm worrying about school work, my friends, family, money, or boys, I continually fret about that fast approaching future, the soon to be present that is the rest of my life. To me, going to a large university was a simple and obvious decision. However, as my senior year fast approached its end, more and more people would ask a not so simple question: "What are you planning on studying in college?!" My answer was generally vague and ambiguous, and was merely a reflection of my uncertainty. I had no idea! I wanted to do it all— from fashion, textile, and graphics design, media studies, religious studies, film making, music making, drawing, art, acting, theatre, government, political science, psychology, anthropology, astronomy, literature, English, and philosophy. As my interests ramified in my bumbling answers, there was only one thing I knew for certain: I was not studying math.

Narrowing the playing field, needless to say, was not an easy task. I do have a goal: I want "a habit of mind" of "which attributes are freedom, equitableness, calmness, moderation, and wisdom" (319,320). Of course, I could never put it in so many words myself, but this sort of illuminated pinnacle of my ideal education was just within my reach. It became apparent to me that my only feasible educational concentration that would play to my many interests would most definitely be a liberal arts education. You often hear about liberal arts majors putting their education to use at fast-food drive-thrus, and while I recognize this as a bit of banal humor, it can be pretty scary to think that your broad, general education could be for naught. Sure it's all about how you employ it, but I definitely wanted to receive a THOROUGH and particular education without specializing it to the point of giving "Undue prominence to one" field of study, which would "be unjust to another" (319). I want to garner a deeper understanding about how the human mind works, how humans work together, and how I play apart in the grand scheme of it all. I want to be cultured! I want to, dare I say it, sound smart, but foremost, be smart. Before college, I read very little on my own time, but I am aware of the important role literature plays and how "orms of human experience [are] embodied" in it (320). I also have a very loose grasp on the grand scheme of history, and have trouble ordering my thoughts sequentially in a timely fashion. I would love to have the sort of "logic, clarity, and grace" as well as the "capacity to think analytically and creatively (320D)." I recognize that all my other more vocational interests would be of no use to me without an initial foundation of "humanistic emphasis" and the sort of "intellectual excellence" that liberal arts education champions and enables (320D, 323). As cheesy as it sounds, I am dealing with my education as if it is the foundation of which I will build the rest of my life on. If my foundation is unstable or incomplete, of course it would follow that I would continue to have social and intellectual barriers to tackle in order to fully understand who I am. So, HERE I am, at UT, vaguely wondering what it would be like to major in Art, Philosophy, or Astronomy. My longing wonders are appeased when I realize that not only will my liberal arts education allow me the freedom to pursue knowledge in these other fields, Plan II encourages it. In the end, I still have all of these interests, but at the head is the means in which to tackle all of these, and that is what the next four years will all be about.