Friday, October 2, 2009
[nothing personal.]
time: 2:14am
current song: weightless [all time low]
How To Become An Undecided Major
(Based on Lorrie Moore's "How To Become A Good Writer")
Come up with a deadset goal in 10th grade. Decide to go to Columbia University or Carnegie Mellon when they send you a brochure in the mail. Aim to be a doctor, a teacher, anything.
Spend all your high school efforts on going toward this particular goal. Join the clubs. Do community service. Take AP and dual enrollment courses. Have an episode when your best friend decides not to go to college. Cry when your boyfriend joins the Air Force. Realize at a blood drive that none of your friends have aspirations like you do. Smile. The bigger the smile, the more it will all implode in your face later.
Put your hopes and dreams in a stack on the floor in the corner of your room and forget about them until senior year, when you learn about college rankings, acceptance ranks, standardized testing, application fees, and how $40,000 a year is more than you thought. Cry. Try to get a job to pay for the application fees. Fail. After taking the ACT one more time, apply to three schools: your state school, the school all your friends are going to, and some random college that you kind of want to go to, but only if _____ and _____ happens (you never get both). You get into two. This is where the indecision begins.
Spend the rest of your senior year weighing the pros and cons of both schools. Use everything, anything, to help you decide. Where is the location? How close is the nearest McDonalds to the dorm room you think you're going to get into? Can you have turtles? Do they have a Dance Dance Revolution club? How many majors does the school offer?
Spiral at the thought of choosing a major. Try to pick a major that's related to the goal you had planned in 10th grade. Procrastinate. One day when you're asleep on a biology lab table with your list in your hand one of your friends who has already paid his enrollment fee takes your list, looks over it, wakes you up and tells you which college you are going to because of some random fact. Decide he is enlightened. Tell your parents your college choice, who are still unaware you didn't apply to the college they went to. Stand your ground. Pay the enrollment fee. Feel comforted. Spend the rest of senior year going to parties.
The course catalog you get at orientation is your best friend. Change your schedule for the entire course of the summer until it is perfect and you can sleep in until 11am when all your friend's classes are at nine. Window shop for useless trinkets to put in your room. Try to get into a student apartment and fail. Try to get into a suite and fail. Complain to the housing department. Decide that it doesn't matter, because your schedule is perfect, and you finally got into that photography class you wanted to get into.
College is not what you thought. Your roommate is never there and any friends that go to college with you make friends in the first week of school with people within their majors. Remember you don't have a major. Panic. Recall that at orientation, your advisor told you you had plenty of time to choose a major. Fail to remember that your advisor also told you that even if you got a C in all your high school math classes, that taking calculus was a good idea.
You start hanging out with the weird person down the hall because you were both wearing the same shirt one day. This person is somehow never doing anything, and so you both sit in the library and watch people scurry back and forth and do projects for their major. Waste all your money on coffee.
Decide you like history until someone tells you there is nothing practical about a history major. The same person tells you this about english, biology, and anything in the college of Arts and Sciences. Unless you are going to graduate school. Which you're not.
Go home every other weekend. Tell your college friends that you have things to do. Tell your home friends you can't come home. Tell your parents you're not accepting phone calls, who sigh and question whether you have chosen a major or not yet. Say that you are working on it.
Realize it is October and you haven't started thinking about next semster's courses. Wow, time sure does fly when you're playing Guitar Hero.
Take 19 hours in the spring to make up for loss time. Take on extra clubs and activities. Have an episode on Valentine's Day. Have an episode during spring break. Decide that college is not for you. Realize that because you spent all of your time doing community service and taking difficult classes in high school that you never learned any tactical skills. Take up smoking.
When standing in line deciding what kind of cigarettes to buy, decide you think advertising is interesting. Make a mental note to take an advertising class next fall.
You spend your entire summer reflecting on your childhood passions. Go through withdrawals from trying not to smoke around at your parents house. Remember that when you were 12, you said you would never smoke cigarettes. Start playing video games you played when you were 12. Consider transferring to an art school to make video games. Decide you are already in too deep. Freak out at the idea of turning 20.
Your advertising teacher is really nice. She makes you feel homey and welcome. Thank God for ratemyprofessor.com
Play a lot of Super Smash Brothers. Spend a lot of time posting witty comments on people's Facebook profiles. Stop going home because you don't have a major. Spend your weekends sitting on garden swings.
Decide you hate advertising. Do this with six other majors over the course of two weeks. Consider double-majoring. Consider dropping out. Realize that none of your aspirations are practical or in reach. The smell of cigarettes now make you sick. Eat your feelings in the cafeteria after your 8pm yoga class.
From here, things become increasingly blurry. All you do is mark pages out of your outdated course catalog to narrow things down. Maybe you decide that at least advertising will guarantee you a job that is not a teaching job. You stop being able to see past the age of 22.
Start dating people with majors that interest you to see what the homework is like. Disappear for a month when they catch on.
Tell people how things would have been easier if you would have just gone to the other school you got into. People start getting worried about you. You always look "frazzled" or "spacey" and they ask if you are okay. You have become tranquil.You smile at them and tell them you are fine. Sit in the library and watch people again.
You drop your yoga class so you can spend more time trying to figure out your major. Clean your room. Wash your roommate's clothes. Sleep a lot. Write more lists. Weigh the pros and cons of becoming a secretary. Try to justify that if you are spending $20,000 a year on college, you could make $20,000 dollars a year. Explain to your friends that this is an opportunity cost, which you learned about in your Economics course you thought you needed for your advertising major. They sigh, and hold you tight when they hug you to go to their meetings for various organizations you used to be apart of.
Spend a lot of time re-decorating your room. Stare at the Christmas lights you have hung from the ceiling.
Every once in a while, your roommate's best friend will catch you staring, mouth agape at the Christmas lights. She somehow knows everything about you. She will ask you if you are okay, if you have homework, and if you have chosen a major yet. Tell her that when you were little, the only thing that troubled your mind was the existance of a fat man bringing your presents in the middle of the night every year even though you stopped believing in Santa when you were 8. Tell her you pretended to believe in Santa until you were 12, but your parents are convinced that you actually did believe, and have made sure to tell all your friends and relatives this. Tell her you miss your Pooh Bear stocking. Tell her when you were 8 you wanted to be a christmas-light-maker.
"Aw," she'll say, and then ask to use your laptop, where you will later find your history bar full of self-help links.
current song: weightless [all time low]
How To Become An Undecided Major
(Based on Lorrie Moore's "How To Become A Good Writer")
Come up with a deadset goal in 10th grade. Decide to go to Columbia University or Carnegie Mellon when they send you a brochure in the mail. Aim to be a doctor, a teacher, anything.
Spend all your high school efforts on going toward this particular goal. Join the clubs. Do community service. Take AP and dual enrollment courses. Have an episode when your best friend decides not to go to college. Cry when your boyfriend joins the Air Force. Realize at a blood drive that none of your friends have aspirations like you do. Smile. The bigger the smile, the more it will all implode in your face later.
Put your hopes and dreams in a stack on the floor in the corner of your room and forget about them until senior year, when you learn about college rankings, acceptance ranks, standardized testing, application fees, and how $40,000 a year is more than you thought. Cry. Try to get a job to pay for the application fees. Fail. After taking the ACT one more time, apply to three schools: your state school, the school all your friends are going to, and some random college that you kind of want to go to, but only if _____ and _____ happens (you never get both). You get into two. This is where the indecision begins.
Spend the rest of your senior year weighing the pros and cons of both schools. Use everything, anything, to help you decide. Where is the location? How close is the nearest McDonalds to the dorm room you think you're going to get into? Can you have turtles? Do they have a Dance Dance Revolution club? How many majors does the school offer?
Spiral at the thought of choosing a major. Try to pick a major that's related to the goal you had planned in 10th grade. Procrastinate. One day when you're asleep on a biology lab table with your list in your hand one of your friends who has already paid his enrollment fee takes your list, looks over it, wakes you up and tells you which college you are going to because of some random fact. Decide he is enlightened. Tell your parents your college choice, who are still unaware you didn't apply to the college they went to. Stand your ground. Pay the enrollment fee. Feel comforted. Spend the rest of senior year going to parties.
The course catalog you get at orientation is your best friend. Change your schedule for the entire course of the summer until it is perfect and you can sleep in until 11am when all your friend's classes are at nine. Window shop for useless trinkets to put in your room. Try to get into a student apartment and fail. Try to get into a suite and fail. Complain to the housing department. Decide that it doesn't matter, because your schedule is perfect, and you finally got into that photography class you wanted to get into.
College is not what you thought. Your roommate is never there and any friends that go to college with you make friends in the first week of school with people within their majors. Remember you don't have a major. Panic. Recall that at orientation, your advisor told you you had plenty of time to choose a major. Fail to remember that your advisor also told you that even if you got a C in all your high school math classes, that taking calculus was a good idea.
You start hanging out with the weird person down the hall because you were both wearing the same shirt one day. This person is somehow never doing anything, and so you both sit in the library and watch people scurry back and forth and do projects for their major. Waste all your money on coffee.
Decide you like history until someone tells you there is nothing practical about a history major. The same person tells you this about english, biology, and anything in the college of Arts and Sciences. Unless you are going to graduate school. Which you're not.
Go home every other weekend. Tell your college friends that you have things to do. Tell your home friends you can't come home. Tell your parents you're not accepting phone calls, who sigh and question whether you have chosen a major or not yet. Say that you are working on it.
Realize it is October and you haven't started thinking about next semster's courses. Wow, time sure does fly when you're playing Guitar Hero.
Take 19 hours in the spring to make up for loss time. Take on extra clubs and activities. Have an episode on Valentine's Day. Have an episode during spring break. Decide that college is not for you. Realize that because you spent all of your time doing community service and taking difficult classes in high school that you never learned any tactical skills. Take up smoking.
When standing in line deciding what kind of cigarettes to buy, decide you think advertising is interesting. Make a mental note to take an advertising class next fall.
You spend your entire summer reflecting on your childhood passions. Go through withdrawals from trying not to smoke around at your parents house. Remember that when you were 12, you said you would never smoke cigarettes. Start playing video games you played when you were 12. Consider transferring to an art school to make video games. Decide you are already in too deep. Freak out at the idea of turning 20.
Your advertising teacher is really nice. She makes you feel homey and welcome. Thank God for ratemyprofessor.com
Play a lot of Super Smash Brothers. Spend a lot of time posting witty comments on people's Facebook profiles. Stop going home because you don't have a major. Spend your weekends sitting on garden swings.
Decide you hate advertising. Do this with six other majors over the course of two weeks. Consider double-majoring. Consider dropping out. Realize that none of your aspirations are practical or in reach. The smell of cigarettes now make you sick. Eat your feelings in the cafeteria after your 8pm yoga class.
From here, things become increasingly blurry. All you do is mark pages out of your outdated course catalog to narrow things down. Maybe you decide that at least advertising will guarantee you a job that is not a teaching job. You stop being able to see past the age of 22.
Start dating people with majors that interest you to see what the homework is like. Disappear for a month when they catch on.
Tell people how things would have been easier if you would have just gone to the other school you got into. People start getting worried about you. You always look "frazzled" or "spacey" and they ask if you are okay. You have become tranquil.You smile at them and tell them you are fine. Sit in the library and watch people again.
You drop your yoga class so you can spend more time trying to figure out your major. Clean your room. Wash your roommate's clothes. Sleep a lot. Write more lists. Weigh the pros and cons of becoming a secretary. Try to justify that if you are spending $20,000 a year on college, you could make $20,000 dollars a year. Explain to your friends that this is an opportunity cost, which you learned about in your Economics course you thought you needed for your advertising major. They sigh, and hold you tight when they hug you to go to their meetings for various organizations you used to be apart of.
Spend a lot of time re-decorating your room. Stare at the Christmas lights you have hung from the ceiling.
Every once in a while, your roommate's best friend will catch you staring, mouth agape at the Christmas lights. She somehow knows everything about you. She will ask you if you are okay, if you have homework, and if you have chosen a major yet. Tell her that when you were little, the only thing that troubled your mind was the existance of a fat man bringing your presents in the middle of the night every year even though you stopped believing in Santa when you were 8. Tell her you pretended to believe in Santa until you were 12, but your parents are convinced that you actually did believe, and have made sure to tell all your friends and relatives this. Tell her you miss your Pooh Bear stocking. Tell her when you were 8 you wanted to be a christmas-light-maker.
"Aw," she'll say, and then ask to use your laptop, where you will later find your history bar full of self-help links.
• • •
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