This is the predominant question in my life right now, and I honestly can't foresee a time where it will not be. It's big and scary and immovable. It was a question all last year, when I was a senior, it was a question all through this internship, and now that I am leaving and going back to Beloit, it is a very very urgent question. The problem is, I don't know, and I don't know how to know.
I am very good at being a student. Just ask my grades. I am goal-oriented and I work hard and I get things done. I have always worked hard to get to the next level, and I have always known what the next level was going to be. In middle school I worked hard to get to high school, in high school I worked hard to get to college, and in college I worked hard to get to graduation. And now...what?
For a student such as myself the logical next step is grad school, and there have been many days that I think this should be the next step. I am planning on taking the GREs in a few months, and starting to look at programs in the fall, but I'm just not sure. I do want to go to grad school at some point, and it would solve my whole planning problem beautifully for a few years: first get master's, then get PhD, that will certainly take up several years in which I will have clear goals and won't have to ask "Now what?". It will also, incidentally, be a great way to hide from this economy, unless in the time it takes me to get these degrees it gets worse instead of better, in which case I assume we will all be wearing leather and fighting over gasoline, or whatever post-apocalyptic scenario you wish to employ. More than that, I enjoy being a student. I love learning. I like being around like-minded people. I like living in and around colleges/universities. It's a good option.
But somedays grad school is the farthest thing from my mind. In which case, I have a slew of conflicting aspirations that fill the void: I want to travel. I want to visit my brother and Gaea, I want to go back to Australia (this is an option for grad school, as well), I really really want to see Europe, and so on and so on.
I want to stay near people I love. This internship has been great and I really like and care about the friends I've made here but I really really missed my friends. There is a huge colony in Madison, which is near Beloit where there are even more, and this is near(ish) my parents and my friends from home and of course Alexander plays an important and confusing role in all of this. I really do enjoy meeting new people and making new friends but at the end of four months all I want to do is go back to a place where I can feel entirely at home and be welcomed into a snuggle pile. This is the option I've chosen for the next couple of months, while I try to figure this all out, and I am afraid it is going to be too comforting. I don't want to stay in the Midwest, for one, which is where most people are (although as I discovered last weekend there is a fabulous Beloiter colony in San Diego which is also quite tempting). I think it is fine and reasonable for me to seek comfort for a few months, but at some point I want to chase other ambitions then "hang out with my friends".
Then of course, there's field work and various biology things. This internship was really great, even while it was sweltering and I was miserable. I learned a lot and made good friends and gained an appreciation for the desert and got to wrangle tortoises. I also got to see a lot of the Southwest, which makes me very happy. However, I didn't get that little bell in my head and a choir of angels singing as I realized "Field work! This is what I must do!" which I was both hoping for and dreading. It would have been great for that to be it, you know? But then there's the whole wanting to be around friends all the time which is not exactly easy if what you want to do is field work. I would definitely do more of it and I want experience with other animals but it's very hard to come by, especially if you want some sort of actual wage. Then there are the other sides of biology I want to experience: environmental education, husbandry, policy, farming, etc. Maybe not things I'd want to devote my life to, but definitely things I want to try. But that is, of course, also very hard if you want any sort of money because you need experience to be hired for any of these things, so you need to get experience some other way (ie by working as slave labor).
Then there's the urge to do something completely different. As I mentioned before, I work hard. I have spent my whole life working hard. Especially in college, especially in science classes, especially the last couple of years. College was a little like running a marathon for me and now I am tired. There is a part of me that thinks it would be really nice to just have an apartment and a job and live near friends for a while. Not a fancy job, not a "going somewhere" job, just a fun job. Maggie has been making being a barista sound very fun. Or bartender. Or...I don't know, something. I would probably volunteer on the side, and it would probably in actuality drive me crazy but it has a certain appeal just at this moment in time. But with this scenario there's the whole problem of future jobs and the big gap in time where I did nothing at all productive is definitely going to be a sticking point for trying to get back into biology.
Then you add student loans to any or all of these pictures.
Seriously, how do people do this?
I know I have time and I can manage to do many if not all of these things and I don't need to do them all at once and I know that plenty of people navigate their way through this and no one really knows what they're doing they just always know a little bit more than they did last year and blah blah blah everything will be okay, but knowing and believing are two different things.
So, now what? This is sort of my question with this blog, as well. I made it to help me as I start this endless life-long process of Figuring It Out, but as of yet I haven't decided how I want to use it. I promise it won't all be long rambling posts about the future and how terrified I am, but I wanted to start out with a baseline. I've probably talked to many of you about all this already, because this has been on my mind for quite a long time and I still don't have any answers. This is the state of mind in which I am entering my voyage into "Real Life". Also, if any of you have any wisdom to share that you haven't already, that would be wonderful.
And now I must try to quiet all these things from my mind and go to sleep, because I have stayed up much too late already and tomorrow is another full day of work and then our last trip together, one of the ones I was most excited for: Yosemite.
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