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“I want to be an astronaut!”
As kids, we threw around these claims about who we want to be and when we want to be it. Without regards to our why or our how, we would change our ideas for the future every couple of weeks, never seeing the inconsistency in our dreams. We were dreamers and had perfect certainty for who we wanted to be (even if we changed our minds on the hour).
That is until we realized one day that our passing ideas for what we want to do with our lives are nothing more than passing ideas. I know that watching Grey’s Anatomy will make me think that a doctor is an awesome career path only to have my mind changed by a Suits Marathon, which will have me looking up Harvard Law’s acceptance rate.
It’s hard. There’s so much wonder in this world. There’s so many amazing paths to follow. Each time we discover something new, our plans for the future can radically change. I’ve seen it happen plenty of times in college: someone wants to pursue a career in X, takes a class in Y, and now wants to pursue a career in Y. Our ideas for where we’re heading are constantly shifting, but these ideas remain so unstable that it's difficult to even know where to head.
Long-term outcomes depend on present-day actions. The internship I choose to take part in next summer will shape the options I have in my career. So, how do I…
