I guess we all have some self-confidence issues. We're a generation of indecision and fretting. Our entire lives, we've been told time again that we can be whatever we want, and all it really resulted in is chronic doubt. I hardly know anyone who is doggedly pursuing a specific dream. Of course, a lot of the worrying is unfounded. There's no absolute path towards any career. We're still young. But after the rigid structure of all these years of schooling, where it's been ingrained that if we do A, B, and C, we'll get to D. School is so wonderfully quantifiable. Can you imagine if it were like the working world? Most kids would get to do second grade, but a few wouldn't make the cut because their interviews went badly.
In that scenario, I hope the kids would be paid for school. I'm just saying, if I'd gotten a salary, my entire outlook would have been different.
Anyways, these thoughts are probably stemming from the prospect of the approaching end of my internship. I've gotten a lot of worthwhile experience, but it strikes me how much it's really just something to prop up my flimsy resume. The internship was part of my carefully plotted education plan, but it doesn't really work the same way as the rest of the schooling process. I'm doing A, but there's no guarantee that I'll get to B because of it. All it does is inflate my chances slightly. When it comes down to it, a good serving of luck is probably what will get me a job (if I do, indeed, get one). I'll be at the mercy of forces beyond my control.
That really scares me.
In that scenario, I hope the kids would be paid for school. I'm just saying, if I'd gotten a salary, my entire outlook would have been different.
Anyways, these thoughts are probably stemming from the prospect of the approaching end of my internship. I've gotten a lot of worthwhile experience, but it strikes me how much it's really just something to prop up my flimsy resume. The internship was part of my carefully plotted education plan, but it doesn't really work the same way as the rest of the schooling process. I'm doing A, but there's no guarantee that I'll get to B because of it. All it does is inflate my chances slightly. When it comes down to it, a good serving of luck is probably what will get me a job (if I do, indeed, get one). I'll be at the mercy of forces beyond my control.
That really scares me.
Did your college acceptance seem like a A to B to C progression? Personally, had no idea where I was going to get in and agonized about the choice for months.
Classes, too. I remember around the end of my first semester Junior year feeling that I had run out of time, and had to start making careful strategic decisions.
Not to mention the myriad of chaos theory that goes into you successfully navigating from your dorm to the milk shop without being hit by an asteroid or falling into a black hole.
I think what I am trying to accomplish with this rambling comment is to emphasize that you are already at the mercy of forces beyond your control and that you should embrace it. You said it yourself: you've got time, you're young. And even if you weren't young you'd still have time.
Not to sound to pretentious, but: everything is transition. It only stops when you give up, and you don't strike me as the type to do that.
(I like the new site layout, by the by, but I miss the Illustomp URL. SIGH)
I was sure I was going to get into most of the schools I applied to, because I knew I was really well qualified (IA does that for you). Deciding to go to Michigan was a little bit of a struggle, since I'd always assumed I'd go to a small liberal arts school, but it was ultimately a choice within my control.
As with school right now, I have to make some tough choices about classes to take, but I know exactly how many credits and requirements I need to graduate. I know full well that there's always a chance something will go unexpectedly, but life so far has been reasonably predicable. The amount of chaos in the system increases exponentially once you're out all up in it.
(And Illustomp doesn't miss you. He's kind of a bastard.)