Even if we might not realize it, we're constantly changing through life. Ever since we are little, we're constantly being asked what we aspire to, what we want to be when we grow up. One day we want to be an astronaut, the next a famous singer, and the day after that a doctor. This goes on to high school, but now there's a difference: we have to choose what it will be. I remember when we were the excited but scared sophomores that were choosing courses for the next TWO YEARS OF OUR LIVES. At that point in my academic life, I was dying to become a doctor, more specifically a surgeon. Deep down, I knew I wanted to take the IA rather than the IB, but after talking to one of my then role-models that was studying psychology, I decided to do the IB and take courses that I knew I would need for med school, regardless of it being around SIX YEARS AWAY. The start of second semester junior year came along and I knew I had made a terrible decision. I felt that I had become a robot: wake up, go to school, sit in a class, go back home, study, sleep, repeat. But I was a robot that was suffering from loss of energy and motivation who's engine was about to sputter and die. However, the end of junior year marked one of the biggest changes of my life to date: the switch to the IA. This change made me realize that the choices I want to make in life, for the most part, should be based on me at that moment, what motivates me and what I truly want. I didn't need to take HL psych, bio and chem in order to become a doctor. I could take any route I wanted to in order to get to my goal. There was nothing set in stone. However, my dream changed too and it's one of the many changes that will happen in my life. Many people I know are going off to college knowing what they want to study, and most of them have known for the longest time. However, I also know many people who have no idea what they want to do. For them it's kind of like jumping into the unknown. They might say they're interested in something and are going to try to pursue it in college. When college comes around, they end up changing and changing, getting to a point where they don't even know what they're aiming for anymore. It suddenly hits them that they have to declare a major, and they just declare what they're studying at that moment, probably without ever feeling extremely passionate about it. However, there is no set course to follow in life. There are no rules saying that the courses you have to study in high school need to be linked to what you want to study. There is not set rule that you can't take a gap year or that you HAVE to stick to what you applied to college for. There isn't even a rule that says you have to go to college. I was reading DD's blog from last week and I say Corey's comment that was asking if college was more important than experience. This immediately made me think of my brother Pepe who was enrolled in Hampshire College but decided to take the semester off. However, the short time that he was in college, what he most valued and enjoyed was working in the blacksmith shop and creating pieces for his car. This is what I consider experience over everything else. He now plans on taking a car drawing course for a month in Italy and then a composite materials course in Rhode Island, which makes him employable once it finishes. He didn't use to have a plan, now he has one for about 8 months and I haven't seen him much happier than this before. Pepe is my prime example of taking the unconventional route to get to his final destination. In the end, we should have a plan, we should have a goal, a dream, job but we're constantly changing. Nothing is set in stone and we can take any route we want in order to get to our final destination. We should have an idea of what we want to aspire to be, but who's to say that that will never change.
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It's my favorite time in the semester again! Feedback sessions. For me, these sessions are probably one of the hardest things we do in the IA, regardless, they are one of my favorites. Why? Because I get to step back and think about how each and every one in the IA is doing, what they excel at, but most importantly what they can improve on. And I also love to hear what everybody has to say about everybody else! This semester, I've been very happy with the feedback that I've been given. Let me start with English. I'm always surprised when we talk about my writing, because I have never considered myself a strong writer. Apart from enjoying writing research papers, I never really liked writing, let alone thought I was a strong writer. However, every feedback session, I've been told that I am, that I have few grammar errors and that I have a clear voice. Apart from that, my writing is fluid and strong as well as impacting. One other point that I didn't think was my strength was using strong vocab and finding the right time to add new vocab. Regardless, this was something that I thought I needed to improve on. Last December, we had to present our POL's and I'm extremely surprised and pleased as to how that went. I have always been one to suffer from stage-fright when I was not being backed up by any sort of music or being accompanied by other people. This time I was pleasantly surprised that I was excited rather than nervous before going on stage and I presented poised and composed, something that I didn't know I could do. One thing I do know, and which was pointed out to me, is that I am an engaged and very fast reader. Regardless of my strengths, we all have weaknesses and mine are recurring. One, that I have to play with my writing and not make it so squared. All my life I have enjoyed writing research papers but not really stories or anything of the sort. This is where I believe my squareness comes from. Second of all, when I talk, I happen to have a really strong voice which can sometimes offend people, so I have to tone it down and soften it up when I talk. These two are points that I was told last semester as well. Even though I have been working on them, they are the two things that I consider the hardest and I've been constantly trying to improve. When it comes to business, I feel like I've improved a lot compared to last semester. I made the decision to join Karen for Habla Roosevelt rather than staying on working on the food truck/cart because I knew that my time would be more valuably spent there. This was a huge change in responsibility for me because I knew that there were a lot more things to get done, and a lot more people that were going to be affected if something with the program didn't work out. I've taken more initiative and I've put myself in charge of more tasks but at the same time, I started to lose my sense of responsibility and I was letting slide some of my tasks, meaning that I wasn't staying on top of them like I should have. Don't get me wrong, I would complete them, but at the last minute, something that I should not be doing. However, one of my points of improvement for English--having a very strong voice when I talk--is one of my strong points for business. Regarding English, this was seen as something that I have to tone down, but for the business aspect of life, it is concrete and useful. Also, something I value greatly in the IA is the amount of teamwork that goes on and this semester I've had a lot of that because I was working so closely with Karen. One last point, is that I feel that I've grown immensely this semester because I had to interact so much more with experts than I had before. We had to have meetings with different admin at school as well as interview teachers for the Habla Roosevelt positions, things I had never done before. However, they're pretty useful skills to have for life. Media has made me learn something about myself of extreme importance--although now that I come to this realization, it seems kind of obvious. When I'm really interested in something or I feel very proud of something that I'm doing or get very excited about it, I will share my work as much as possible. The reason why I started to become more active on Twitter is because I was on it a lot more to share pictures of my donuts. This time I spend on Twitter is not only spent sharing my own work, but also retweeting classmates work and things I find interesting. It's definitely a habit that I want to develop because it's a great way to showcase beautiful work and showcase ourselves. These feedback sessions have made me come to some realizations. One, seeing as English was my strongest point last semester, I didn't work as hard as I should have in order to improve what I needed to from last semester. Two, I've taken more initiative for certain tasks and left some behind. Three, when I'm extremely proud or excited about something--Glazed--I'm a lot more like to start tweeting out my things and using media to sell my products. Most importantly of all, sometimes we are so caught up in ourselves and what we're doing, that we don't take the time to zoom in and analyze ourselves and we don't zoom out and let people constructively criticize us. These opportunities are not meant to bring us down, but to help us grow. One of the things I most vividly remember from the National Student Leadership Conference (NSCL) I attended in Washington DC. a couple of years ago, was something that Dr. Marfuggi said: visionaries are people who turn their dreams into reality. From that moment on, it never left my head and I became determined to become a visionary.
While sitting in class last Tuesday discussing about how we would present our final thesis project, Designing our Life, we were torn between presenting our final plan to an audience of our classmates and families, just our classmates, or not presenting at all. However, although we didn't come to a final decision, we did come to an agreement that sharing your dreams helps you accomplish your goals because you start to be held accountable for them. As soon as this was said, I thought of Glazed. I had always wanted to start a baking business but never knew what niche I wanted to be in. I was always interested in cupcakes but that wasn't a new market. Then there was gluten free food, but that market was going to be way harder to break because it's not as desirable. After stumbling upon a Buzzfeed article on the deliciousness of donuts, I immediately knew I wanted to sell donuts. There was no way of not doing it. My point is, that I've come to some difficulties which have hindered my ability to sell: not finding a vanilla recipe that I feel is good enough or not finding satisfactory boxes to package my products in or taking the magic of Facebook for granted and thinking that my page would have a lot more likes or my closest friend believing that it would not work out and constantly try to change my mind about it. Regardless of those struggles and setbacks, I had already spread the word. I had sent out my Facebook page to my friends and shared pictures on Instragam. There was no turning back now. I wasn't holding myself accountable as much as other people were. Now, I've gotten to a point where my classmates are constantly asking me when I'm going to start selling and as soon as I do, they'll place their order. There really is no turning back. For our final thesis, we knew that if we presented, we were a lot more likely to follow our plan and accomplish our goals but somehow this project felt a lot more personal and not just another POL or TedTalk. NSCL was a conference in leadership in Health and Public Medicine and at that point in my life, I had my heart set on becoming a surgeon. That August I started the IB and had chosen courses based on what I wanted to study rather than what I really wanted to do. After my worst year in school, I realized that medicine was not the right track for me at that moment. A year later, as I was looking for different schools to apply to, I came across a major that really interested me: international studies. My brain got to work and I knew that this was what I wanted to do, and as I was looking for internships, I thought that focusing on health was what I was most interested on. So I came around full circle. Sometimes we lose sight of our goals as we get caught up in the moment and we get knocked down struggle after struggle. Or it might just be that we have too many dreams, becoming overwhelmed by them, we lose perspective and end up not being able to realize any of them. Sometimes it's necessary to change paths and directions for a short while, accomplish other things or find other goals, and you never know, it might take you back to your original starting point because sometimes, we are meant to come around full circle. |
Author"Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light." Archives
June 2015
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