Because we were not made with foresight...

Applying to College Admission Stories
1

Hey everyone, it’s been a while, hasn’t it?

For the few of you that find my name familiar, you might remember <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/admissions-hindsight-lessons-learned/905391-aspirations-rejections-resetting-all.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/admissions-hindsight-lessons-learned/905391-aspirations-rejections-resetting-all.html&lt;/a&gt;.

That was my first post on this website and was, obviously, not my last.

I’ve come to tell you guys about another story that, though it only loosely fits under ‘College Admissions’, certainly fits under ‘Lessons Learnt’.

As you all know, back when I made that first post, I was certain that I wanted to be a doctor. Since I was a child, there was only one thing that was certain, that I would become a doctor. Well, turns out that nothing is really that certain. Since that first post, I have thoroughly thought about what I wanted to do with my life and I realized that medicine was not for me. Sadly, I came to UCR believing that I was going to be a doctor and this school was certainly excellent to achieve that goal.

But now I’m changing my major from Biology to a double major in Mechanical Engineering and (hopefully) Game Design. But UCR doesn’t exactly have a Game Design course and, being without a car, I can’t go back and forth between community college and my current campus. So, yes, I do intend to transfer, but not because UC Riverside was ‘a horrible school’ or fell short of any of my expectations as so many people have stated.

I simply decided to follow my dreams and UCR wasn’t…as equipped to handle those dreams. But, I must admit, this mix up and the guilt I feel for leaving this campus was my own fault because I didn’t realize sooner than the only reason I wanted to go to Med school was because it was ‘safe’. All I had to do was work hard and be as involved in the community as I could. Basically, it was high school all over again, except on a monumentally larger scale.

But real life doesn’t work that way and I had to decide whether to face uncertainty or survive a life that I never wanted but had to accept because I wasn’t courageous enough to strive for what I wanted. I know I chose correctly.

So, let me end this with another piece of advice. Don’t try to predict what the future holds. I’m sure many people have told you aspiring college-goers that you may not know what you want and you still have time to figure it out. Well, you know what, whoever told you that was absolutely right. You may not know what you want, so don’t plan your future so strictly that you can’t cope with change when it decides to rear its head. There are people in the world who changed their majors eight times before finding what they really loved to do and this is 100% true because my friend’s father was one of these men.

Don’t be afraid to follow your dreams, but don’t try to predict the future; it might just lead you into an uncomfortable position, disabling you and putting you at a disadvantage compared to your peers.

I hope this helps, and good luck!

2

Excellent points, aussieexchange. I have often thought that foresight would come in quite handy, and have also wished for a convenient lightning bolt to write a note in my dinner salad to help me make difficult decisions. However, I must admit that I am of the camp that I have learned just as much from the decisions I regret (never say “bad”) as the decisions that I made that turned out well. One of the most powerful things that I learned in college came from a psych professor that looked exactly like the mice in her experiments, and regarded a theory whose name I have long forgotten. However, the essence of the lesson was powerful.

If you want to continue to grow, learn, and progress in life, you must consider the borders of your knowledge, and their permeability, carefully. Picture yourself and what you know about a specific boss, for example. If you think of what you know about “Roger” when you first started working with him, you would have believed anything. Your borders of knowledge were completely permeable. If someone told you he was about to win a Nobel, or about to be arrested for embezzlement, you would consider it equally likely to be true. As you get to know Roger, your borders of knowledge SHOULD become less permeable. Now when someone tells you a new piece of information, you can judge it more carefully. If it is out of character, and turns out true, your borders will change again to include it. However, if it seems out of character, you may do some research before assuming that it is true and believing it.

You didn’t make a mistake picking UCR. You had a plan based on what you thought you wanted. As you learned, your borders were permeable enough to realize that medicine was not for you. That is a STRENGTH not a weakness. The people who get in trouble are those whose borders are rigid (e.g. I don’t care if I hate science I still want to be a doctor) or excessively permeable (e.g. my new girlfriend doesn’t like doctors and the program is time consuming). These are the people that miss new lessons, become rigid and stuck in another time period in their opinions, and are unhappy.

Think permeability, look back on your good choices as well as your bad, and you will be fine!

That’s enough philosophy for a morning…

3

Thank you so much for posting this. Seriously, you read my mind. Although I am still waiting to hear from some schools, I have already changed my major (via emailing the schools and requesting a major change). All my life I had said that I wanted to be a journalism major. I mean, writing was my life. But then I started to get tired of the news, and the media, and everything involved in that major. I changed my major to social work knowing that I would rather spend my life helping people. The thing is though, a year from now, a may want to go back to Journalism, and that may be an internal debate within myself for the next four years. I’ve always been a planner, and like to know what’s next, but you’re so right about everything that you said. After tons of things that I have been through over the past few months as I finally finish up high school, I have come to realize that I can’t predict the future and that I just need to go with it.

4

Seventeen words and Aussie, you are on the way to being wildly successful adults! The ability to change course when you don’t feel there is a fit is a critical skill. That said, your work life is roughly 45 years long. Not everyone finishes at the same spot they began - it is often a matter of evolution. I am unusual - I picked my career at 11, and have continued to remain passionate about it for 40 plus years. That said, I absolutely wish that I had done things differently in college (specifically, taken more business coursework to supplement my courses as a speech pathologist) but guess what! I have an infinite number of opportunities to learn about those subjects as an adult, and they are likely more meaningful now than then. For example, there is nothing like a relatively bad year of profits because you didn’t know to calculate a profit margin effectively to teach you how to effectively calculate a profit margin. :slight_smile:

5

Permeability-great concept and absolutely true in real life. I changed majors several times before graduating 20+ yrs ago. Throughout my career I have stayed close to my major in Science, but because I have been flexible and always open to new learning opps, offered many different work experiences and promotions along the way! Always in the spirit of expanding and keeps the lines blurred and open.