I don't know about you, but at the age of 16, I could barely decide what I wanted to eat, (I have since figured it out -- it's probably pizza) let alone what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Thankfully, I have a family member who spent 30 years of his life doing one thing and then abruptly decided to do pretty much exactly the opposite, so I never whole-heartedly believed in this whole myth. But for those who did prescribe to the belief that the choice of their high school subjects which would lead to a narrowed field of university courses to choose from which would then lead further into a career they would be stuck in for the rest of their lives these decisions must have been truly terrifying.
Me? I have made a number of choices during the course of my university life, all of which have honestly reminded me of the fact that I am terrible at making decisions. Since my life's story makes therefore for great comedy, hell, it'd be a crime of me not to share! So here, have a timeline, starting from my last three years of high school.
How Silbena ended up where she is now
Third last year of high school
Silbena decides on a hodgepodge of subjects for the last two years of high school based on previous experience, picking subjects she likes and has previously been good at. She has no clue about what she wants to do with her life.
Second last year of high school
Silbena drops legal studies because fuck that noise.
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| An accurate depiction of Silbena's feelings toward legal studies |
Third last year of high school
Beginning of the year - Silbena is absolutely convinced that she is going to become a Creative Person when she grows up. She is debating university courses like journalism and creative writing.
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| I imagine this is what creativity looks like |
Halfway through the year - Silbena has an epiphany and decides to study science instead.
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| I imagine this is what epiphanies look like |
Before final exams - After looking into several universities, Silbena decides on Monash University due to the freedom they give to their students to choose their own units without a prescribed core structure of a course. She is so adamant on being accepted to this university she does not even enter other universities into her preferences.
On release of results - Silbena finds out she has done much better than anticipated and hastily changes her mind to do a double degree in science and biomedical sciences, because she feels like she would be "wasting" her good grades otherwise.
First year of university
Beginning of the year - Silbena enrols in her double degree, gleeful and excited. She also gleefully falls into the trap of spending way too much money on textbooks she basically doesn't need anyway. She never buys textbooks again.
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| Don't buy the textbook until your lecturer starts assigning practice problems from it, and even then wait to see whether you get inundated in mandatory assignments first |
Halfway through first semester - Silbena suddenly remembers that the last time she did biology was in year 9 AND she never liked it then either. Why the hell did she choose to do biomedical sciences again?
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| Nope, biology didn't get any more enjoyable in the time you didn't do it |
Halfway through second semester - Silbena finds out that philosophy is the worst thing on the planet and begins to suspect that she really shouldn't be allowed to make her own life choices.
End of second semester - Due to her excellent grades, Silbena receives a letter from the science faculty asking her to enrol in a course that will allow her to do honours at the end of her course. Silbena switches courses for a second time.
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Second year of university
First semester - Silbena can't take any electives. She is debating on whether she should major in chemistry or in geology. She really likes environmental chemistry and the idea of combining geology and chemistry, which could be done in environmental sciences. She begins to wonder about future careers.
Second semester - Silbena is sick of drawing rocks and gives up on geology, deciding to major in chemistry instead. She is still fascinated by environmental chemistry. She is adamant that she is much better at analytical than synthetic chemistry and is likely to end up in that sort of a field.
Third year of university
First semester - Silbena finds out that environmental chemistry is the worst thing on the planet and decides to focus her energies on synthetic chemistry instead.
And in the second semester -- who knows? There is still plenty of time for me to decide that this whole education thing isn't for me at all, drop out and do knitting for a living instead. I think the moral of the story here is that I'm really great at making decisions: but it's just that when I make decisions, they usually end up being wrong.
Don't stress, pumpkins. We'll find out what we want to do in the end, and we'll just do a whole bunch of terribly boring things in the meanwhile just so we can cross those things off.
