Ranting to /dev/null

Getting back to work

It's been a while. I haven't posted anything for about two weeks, by my estimation. During that time I finished the major draft of my senior thesis, drove to Chattanooga, replaced all the tires on my car (grrrr!), moved out of Simpson's house in Tiftonia and back to Catacombs, and finished my first week of classes. I've also begun spearheading something of a wave-making exercise up on campus, trying to get the administration to be a little forthcoming with info. But more on those things later. What I want to write about now is something Josiah mentioned today.

I'm graduating from Covenant in December, barring any unexpected Acts of God. As such, I kind of need to figure out what I'm going to be doing in about three months, which means I should probably have a pretty clear idea about what that's going to be within the next month or so. Yikes.

I've waffled between a lot of career options during my time at Covenant. This indecision was fostered by what I hope is genuine change and growth (I've ruled out the ministry pretty firmly, to the relief of people everywhere), but also because I haven't found all that much that I'm interested in that I couldn't do if I wanted to. I know that sounds arrogant, but it's kind of true. I could do law, history, philosophy, business, management, or finance. All of them would require more schooling, but I'd be able to do any of them. I probably couldn't excel at all of them, but I'd do okay for myself. So trying to limit my options by asking what I can do isn't very helpful.

So I'm tossing around all of these different ideas, and seriously considering taking a year off to "sort things out." When, last month, my mom points out, "Ryan, what would you know after a year off that you don't know now? You already know you could do okay at anything you cared to try, and you already know you're headed for some kind of graduate work. It's time to pick something."

She was right, of course. Though the idea of taking a year off to "think about things" is attractive, I probably wouldn't really have any clearer idea about what I wanted to do than I do now. And I've seen several people "take a year off" that has turned into more like half a decade. I don't want to do that. So I picked something. As we speak, I'm filing my application for admission to Penn State's Post-Baccalaureate Premedical program to get the science courses I need to take the MCATs.

Something of an about face from anything I've talked about previously, but the more I think about it the more excited I get about it. I'm starting to get a bit...not "frustrated" exactly...more like "dissatisfied" with the humanities. Postmodernism means that most people are doing increasingly angular and technical things in the humanties, and that doesn't appeal to me all that much. I've got a lot more to say about this, but I'll leave it at that for now.

"And," I'm thinking, "If I'm going to be doing something basically technical with my humanties degree, why shouldn't I do something actually technical and get paid a decent wage? I mean, law is still an option, but I kind of want to be able to like myself at the end of the day, so it's not much of one." But the idea of being an engineer doesn't appeal to me at all. That's too technical for my blood, and though I like playing with computers, I don't like working with them.

Then someone suggested medicine. And a light kind of went on. Of course! A basically technical field that involves socialization. Lots of it. And I've always known I wanted to truly master whatever field I'm in, something I was always a bit worried about in the humanities. I mean, I knew I could get a Ph.D. if I really wanted to, but I don't think I'd be anything more than your run-of-the-mill academic. But they don't let you practice medicine unless you've completely mastered your discipline. You don't have to be the best, but you've got to be undeniably a master.

So that's kind of it. I'm going to try and find a job in Chattanooga for the spring so I can save some money to pay for this post-bac program, and I'm going to look into volunteering at Erlanger.

Yeah. Making concrete choices feels really good, you know?

Posted by ryan at September 9, 2003 08:25 PM | TrackBack