A Brief History of Majors.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about college-related things. Maybe it has, maybe it hasn’t bleed into some of my writings. It’s occurred to me that I may not have actually documented all the shifts I’ve gone through.

I never knew what I wanted to be growing up. Given my sloppy handwriting and high intelligence, it was assumed I was bound for some sort of high-paying job. Being a doctor never appealed to me, however. To this day, I’m still squeamish about blood and gore. Through middle school and high school, I remember being asked what I’d “do in college”. I hated it. All that subtle pressure poured on young kids, it’s ridiculous. So glad I had some people in my family who were more concerned with happiness than simply impressing people. Nonetheless, I remember answering, “Something in computers.” Remember, this was back in the 90’s.

The fact that I didn’t want to go to college is beside everything. I remember looking up course catalogs and picking “Computer Science” because I wanted to be software-based, not hardware based. Looking back, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I liked playing around with computers. I could fiddle with hardware, I could fiddle around with software, but the thought of being cubiclized scared the hell out of me. Blame Office Space. I got by just fine in the first Comp Sci course I took at Rutgers. But I found the pace stressful. In successive courses, point-blank, I just didn’t want to do the work. Only now do I see that as much as it was a matter of not wanting to do the work, it was a matter of not wanting to do THAT work.

I took a variety of classes. I aced a logic course. Man, I wished there were more like that, it was like crack to me. Should have taken it as a sign. Took some philosophy classes, but never did spectacular in them, nor was I ever particularly motivated by the readings. Loved psych 101. But successive courses never called to me. Loved expository writing, as retarded as that sounds. Took the first class on the path for english majors, but it definitely let me realize it wasn’t for me. All the while I’d fail an occasional class, and hear from my dad questions about why I wasn’t ‘progressing’ faster. But this isn’t about that.

After three years as a comp sci major, I changed my major to journalism. It was slightly too little, too late, but at the time I needed to do SOMETHING to assert myself. I felt like I wasn’t in control of my life. Of course, continuing the downward spiral, I withdrew from Rutgers on the third week of that fourth year.

For a good ten months, I didn’t give much thought to school. Well, Paige’s dad suggested I go to a technical school. Learn a skill, get a job fast. It was an idea. Never came to be. Got a job at Panera. Overworked myself, took on responsibilities that weren’t mine. It was healing. Looking back, I see how mismanaged that store was. And getting fired was for the best. I remember taking my first vacation in ages. I remember deciding to go to CCM to “take some classes”. That was entirely my decision, all of my own volition. That was the fall of 2005.

My initial thought was that I could at least get an associates in comp sci for all my troubles. It was a nice thought. I probably could have finished it easily if my inspirations didn’t take my elsewhere. It was October 2005 that I discovered my zest for the gym. By fall 2006, I changed my major to exercise science. Took a little longer than it should have, but I ultimately finished that degree in spring 2009. (Stupid capstone class only being offered once a year.) So, I now have an associates of science in exercise science.

I took a full year off mentally from thinking about school. I only latently looked for jobs in the field. Perhaps I should have looked more. That’s on me. But there was something else: I never actually wanted to be a personal trainer. Yes, there’s other things in the medical field – but again, I never wanted to do anything medically related. With trainers, you hit your ceiling pretty fast. What was I going to do, open my own facility? Nor did I want to be an athletic trainer. What I really wanted to do was learn how to periodize training, how to construct routines to make people big and strong. And as retarded as it sounds, that’s simply not something taught in school much. Schooling in the field is pretty much about how to avoid death and not get sued.

I contemplated completing my degree, getting a BS in kinesiology or something, and getting some initials like CSCS after my name. (Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist, which pretty much means you know how to write routines.) But there was something pidgeonholing about it. Something turned me off. More than the fact that most personal trainers are tools. Maybe it my feeling like nobody should listen to me because I’m not big and strong myself. Maybe.

It was a conversation with some coworkers that spawn my latest inspiration. They were complaining about their kids math teachers. And it hit me like a brick: Shit, I could do better than them. Right there, the seed was planted. I thought back to early grade school. Math always came naturally to me. The problem then became my disinterest in pushing myself. My K-12 education taught me that I’m smart, and that if I have to apply myself, I’m clearly not smart enough. That only “overachievers” apply themselves, to compensate for how stupid they are. An overconfidence, almost arrogance, that caused a sheer meltdown once upon a time in my life.

I thought to myself, “Well. I could get a degree in math, and if I don’t like it, I’ll still have a degree in math.” Now THAT’S planning for contingencies. It was all the way back last fall that I registered for this past semester, spring 2011. I took Teaching In America, and started all the way back in Calc I. A start, to see if I liked it. I aced both.

But simple grades simply don’t tell the story. I feel a shift in my psyche. I’ve done calculus before, true. But do you know how much I actually remembered from ten years ago? Very little. Unless I remember calculus subconsciously, I had to relearn everything. To get it, to really get it, it’s such an awesome feeling. I simply don’t get that feeling from writing papers. I can write papers, don’t get me wrong. But I stress over them. I’ve been getting a LOT better with doing them ahead of time and editing significantly. But I sat in that library and overstudied calc. I WENT OVER THE EXAMS, noting why which ones I got wrong and why. I made SELF-TESTS for myself to made sure I wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

Can I express how on top of things I feel right now?

I had to do some observations for the teaching class. It brought to light a simple reality: teachers are hard-working and underpaid. Now it’s not that I’m against hard work. Shit, being a shift manager in quick service food is pretty damned hard work! But it seems to me that to be a teacher, you really need to WANT to teach, not just do it on a whim. Moreover, teaching at a college level strikes me as far more fun. You can’t just get a BS in teaching and then teach at a college level. Virtually all of the professors I’ve had over the years, at some point, mention some real-world experience they had. If I want to teach at a college level, I need to get out there and DO something.

After a single semester, my mindset has changed entirely. I’m going to finish my goal of completing this math teaching associates, but when I transfer to a 4-year, I’m going to do straight-up math. If I really want to teach, I think I’m better off getting a masters in education, anyway. It sounds a little strange to hear me say it, but I want to learn more math. If you read course descriptions, they sound intimidating. But I have more confidence in myself. It’s more than being smart enough. It’s having the resolve not to panic if I don’t understand something initially.

I’ve been looking at the degree requirements and course descriptions at Montclair. I’ve had a massive academic boner lately. There’s only a single off-field that I haven’t fully explored: linguistics. As the phrase goes, math is the language of science. Linguistics is the science of language. Maybe I’d get something out of it. At worst, it’ll be some interesting elective. It’s a desire to cross the streams and show I’m not only smart, but I can express myself. Otherwise, I’ve been thinking about what kind of concentration(s) I want. Do I concentrate in finance? Statistics? Both? Physics?

I’ve done something I haven’t really done before: Look at what I can actually DO with a degree. Being an actuary sounds like a lot of fun. And even if don’t get into it, or decide it’s not for me, the skills I’d acquire would be very useful in many fields. If I took enough probability courses, I could find my way into cryptography. Talk about bad-ass.

Have I mentioned I’m just really excited right now? I almost wish I could take a class or something over the summer, if it didn’t mean going to a single three-hour class 4/5 days a week. Next semester is going be Calc II, Linear Algebra, Statistics, Behavior Observations in Education, and Educational Psychology. The semester after should be Calc III, differential equations, advanced statistics, microeconomics, and accounting I. And that’ll finish my second associates.

Did I mention doing my fafsa yielded me a pell grant? Won’t cover everything, but it’s certainly better than nothing.

I think that’s most of it, unless I start repeating myself. Long and boring and nobody cares, but whatever. When I finish this (or change paths yet again), it’ll be interesting to see what I thought.