A Broadened Path

Going into college, I was fairly confident about what I wanted to do with my life. I was going to go into publishing, preferably young adult or children’s publishing, be an editor, something like that. And I was also going to be a Young Adult novelist. Pretty simple.

But as freshman year proceeded, I felt myself opening up to different possibilities. The prospect of publishing became less attractive, and the idea of librarianship came into the picture. With that came ideas of different kinds of librarianship—university librarianship, rare books librarianship, even work in archives.

Now, this year, particularly this semester, I feel myself opening up to even more possibilities as I become engrossed in my second major. I feel like the academic study of religion potentially holds something important for my future. But I don’t know what. What could I do with a graduate degree in religion--become a professor? That idea is fairly intimidating. I never thought of myself as a teaching type of person. Still, I’m drawn to the idea of graduate school, research, academia, etc., albeit hesitantly. This hesitance is, of course, appropriate because most of these ideas are wispy, newly floating in my head; plus, grad school would only be an option if I was fully or nearly-fully funded. Still, I can’t help but feeling like there is something there—something in this Religion major that may translate into a direction for my career.

Perhaps religion and librarianship would somehow find a combination in theological librarianship or the archives of a religious denomination--though that's a slim, slim field.

There’s communications to consider as well. My scholarship at Susquehanna includes an Assistantship in Advancement Communications. When I graduate, I’ll have four years of internship experience that would give me an edge in obtaining an entry-level communications job. Do I want to be in communications? I’m not sure. It’s the most practical choice out of everything I’ve considered, and the idea of communications for a non-profit I care about has a certain level of appeal. Maybe I’d be able to combine Communications with religious studies and work for a non-profit that deals with something like ecumenicism, which promotes unity and understanding between Christian denominations.

Even writing possibilities have expanded. For my scholar’s house project, I originally planned on completing a full draft of a Christian Young Adult novel, but I have found myself hardly motivated, in terms of fiction. Instead I keep turning to poetry. I’ve even adjusted  my project so my end-product is not a novel draft but a collection of writings dealing with faith—including both a segment of a novel and poems.  

For a girl who’s always been fairly set on what she wanted to do—at least the be-a-writer part of the equation—it’s unsettling that college hasn’t narrowed down my path but broadened it.  I’ll admit, I hope this broadening will suddenly contract senior year—that I will be led, clearly, to a pathway that is both fulfilling and financially viable. In fact, I would like for that contraction to take place now. In the meantime, though, I’ll have to try to make the best of this broad path of possibility.