Day 16 - A revelation
This is going to be short and sweet since it's 11:20 p.m. and I am exhausted and have a busy morning tomorrow! I just visited the handy Imagination Prompt Generator, and once again it gave me just the perfect prompt. Perfect in that it requires very little time and effort to answer. My apologies to all of you for the lack of engaging writing tonight!
Today's prompt: Did you go to college or have vocational training - where and when?
After graduating from high school in 1996, I attended Santa Rosa Junior College for two years, majoring in Theater (there's a fun fact that you probably didn't know!). I dreamed of a career in acting, and loved the theather department there. In 1998 I transferred to Pepperdine University. Before enrolling in a single theater course there, I changed my major to Public Relations because I was intimidated by all of the Theater students who seemed infinitely more talented than I, and many of whom already had a foot in the door (doing commercials, getting agents, etc.). I knew nothing about P.R., but had a friend who was majoring in it as well and thought it might be interesting. After one semester of P.R. classes that I didn't enjoy (once again because I was intimidated by the "who you know" atmosphere of the career path), I changed my major to Education. I spent one semester in this field (notice the pattern here?) and after my first student teaching assignment found myself once again intimidated, this time by the fact that this career path involved the huge responsibility of instructing children. I was utterly overwhelmed by this responsibility and quite confident that I could not to do the job well enough. I found myself at a loss as to what to try next. Everything seemed too hard or too big or too scary. There was one major, however, that I thought I would be comfortable with and competent in...and though I had no clear career ambition (since I certainly couldn't teach), I became an English major. In December 2001, five and a half years after graduating from high school (jeesh!), I graduated from Pepperdine with a B.A. in English with an emphasis in Writing and Rhetoric. And here I am today, eight and a half years later, still trying to do something with that degree!
It's interesting...this is really the first time that I've stopped to think about how fear was the motivating factor in so many of my decisions at that time. I've long known that I wasn't mentally healthy for most of college (I had a severe bout of clinical depression that may be subject for another day), but I never really realized that my college career, and thus my later career path, were totally influenced by my fears and total lack of self-confidence. What a profound thing to discover now! A mentor told me two years ago, "Never let fear be the reason you don't do something." If only I had had that wisdom ten years ago, I wonder how my college experience would have been different. Perhaps I'd be a famous actress today...but probably not! :)
Today's prompt: Did you go to college or have vocational training - where and when?
After graduating from high school in 1996, I attended Santa Rosa Junior College for two years, majoring in Theater (there's a fun fact that you probably didn't know!). I dreamed of a career in acting, and loved the theather department there. In 1998 I transferred to Pepperdine University. Before enrolling in a single theater course there, I changed my major to Public Relations because I was intimidated by all of the Theater students who seemed infinitely more talented than I, and many of whom already had a foot in the door (doing commercials, getting agents, etc.). I knew nothing about P.R., but had a friend who was majoring in it as well and thought it might be interesting. After one semester of P.R. classes that I didn't enjoy (once again because I was intimidated by the "who you know" atmosphere of the career path), I changed my major to Education. I spent one semester in this field (notice the pattern here?) and after my first student teaching assignment found myself once again intimidated, this time by the fact that this career path involved the huge responsibility of instructing children. I was utterly overwhelmed by this responsibility and quite confident that I could not to do the job well enough. I found myself at a loss as to what to try next. Everything seemed too hard or too big or too scary. There was one major, however, that I thought I would be comfortable with and competent in...and though I had no clear career ambition (since I certainly couldn't teach), I became an English major. In December 2001, five and a half years after graduating from high school (jeesh!), I graduated from Pepperdine with a B.A. in English with an emphasis in Writing and Rhetoric. And here I am today, eight and a half years later, still trying to do something with that degree!
It's interesting...this is really the first time that I've stopped to think about how fear was the motivating factor in so many of my decisions at that time. I've long known that I wasn't mentally healthy for most of college (I had a severe bout of clinical depression that may be subject for another day), but I never really realized that my college career, and thus my later career path, were totally influenced by my fears and total lack of self-confidence. What a profound thing to discover now! A mentor told me two years ago, "Never let fear be the reason you don't do something." If only I had had that wisdom ten years ago, I wonder how my college experience would have been different. Perhaps I'd be a famous actress today...but probably not! :)
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