My Future Plans are Getting Brighter… And Longer?
I am a first generation, low-income, minority college student who had absolutely no plan four years ago. Now, AmeriCorps and a Ph.D. are in my future.
I was offered to join an AmeriCorps program called City Year this week! This is absolutely great news. But it also sent me into a long spiral of thinking about my plans afterwards. I am a future-oriented person, so my career in education has been formulating for about a year now. I have constantly been envisioning my post-grad plans, what my master’s degree will be in, what research I will conduct for my doctoral dissertation, and where I want to live and work. Once I figured out my calling in education and social justice, my brain has been simply nonstop. But now, things are getting serious, and closer.
The interesting part about this is that four years ago, this was not me. I wanted a business degree and to work in corporate America, as I mentioned in my first Medium story. Honestly, I believed that was the way out. However, I have learned during my college years that I am capable of so much more. I enjoy research, I strive to help others, and I truly love school. College has made me think deeper about myself, others, education, society, healthcare, and so many other things. Going to UNC has made believe I was pushed in the right direction and in a positive way, which I am absolutely grateful for.
At first I wanted to be a clinical psychologist, then a school psychologist, then a teacher, then a policy analyst, then create my own education consulting business, and now it’s all a bit up in the air. I know with a doctorate in developmental or educational psychology I can do almost whatever I want to do while still doing the academic/research piece. I think that’s the issue with going to college, and specifically majoring in an interdisciplinary study like Human Development and Family Studies: OPTIONS. I have an overwhelming number of options right now. I could go to school for three years and be school psychologist or do an alternative route to teaching or go straight and get a job in DC as a policy analyst. Or I can do AmeriCorps or I can become a research coordinator to prepare me for graduate school. These options, and the fact that I found my calling for education relatively late in the game, has made it difficult to decide on the right path for me. However, I know AmeriCorps is something that will help me tremendously for any direction I choose, so I am so thankful I am able to do it. After that I’m not sure if I will do research or if I will go straight to the PhD. That decision is for a later time though, and I know I’ll make the right choice.
I just can’t help but wonder about all of the other children and young adults like me who will not and did not have this experience. College has opened a great number of doors for me and I know many people without a college degree can feel trapped and limited. Not to say that college is absolutely necessary for one to feel happy and fulfilled in life, but I believe everyone should have an equal chance to go — because it is truly wonderful. However, not everyone can go, wants to go, or has enough resources to succeed in that environment. This is a significant and emotional thing for me to type because college is essentially where I found my entire life. To think about others not having this experience is daunting. But the educational system leading up to college is not designed to encourage some populations to attend college. Low funding, lack of school resources, and not enough encouraging teachers and staff to push kids in the college direction are just a few factors that contribute to this problem. This is why I want to go into education: the inequalities are incredibly vast and I want to create change for the better.
For now though, I will continue making my smaller steps — finishing school, AmeriCorps, research, and my graduate degree. Hopefully these small steps will add up to creating extraordinary change for others.
