On the Future

To the People who will be asking me,

I am a sociology student about to finish my very last semester, capping off a four year foray into new friends, experiences and stories to tell. Standing here, writing this, thinking about my future, truthfully, I am uncertain. I've come to associate uncertainty with weakness, a feebleness to stand for something -- What do you want to eat for dinner? or What are you going to do with your life?

That last question leaves a bit of a sting, but it has a good point. I have always believed in careful preparation to maximize results. I like to meticulously reread recipes, researching the varying chemical processes that will occur and laying out the ingredients in front of me. This, however, is so that when the chaos that will probably happen -- eggshell pieces in the soup, pot over boiling -- I will be able to devote my present attention to the burning garlic than remembering how to do everything in the first place.

Similarly, we could hope that college has prepared me to become an independent human being, a recipe for success. While it is tempting to look back at my education with an expression of betrayal -- "What can I do that is useful to society?" -- sociology never promised a 401k and a second home on the beach. Sociologists seem to only exist in the university. Outside of the classroom and the department hallways, sociologists are harder to see.

Uncertainty does not need to be so frightening. Not knowing what you are going to do does not mean the world will end once I leave "student" and enter "unemployed". I kind of look forward to that day with amusement. Will I feel the shackles of academia slip from my shoulders? Will the world swirl around me like a bad dream sequence? Anti-climatically, it will probably be like having your birthday and wondering if you feel older yet.

I don't want to foreshadow my future into joblessness; I definitely don't need that. I hope to find work when I graduate, not just by refreshing Craigslist, but by researching how exactly you can work internationally, talking to people doing work I want to do and trying it out for myself--as I am experimenting with journalism through this blog. The first step is trying and comes with shaking off the fear of beginning anew.

No doubt there will be failures, but I hope my parents are not concerned about the absence of mistakes. I think they are afraid of a lack of trying, and of thinking. Twenty-one years of raising me, and I know they still get suspicious that I don't have a working brain in my head. To their credit, they are also looking for responsibility, which must be cultivated. Responsibility for myself means thinking hard and seriously about my life. For me, it must be in my terms, combined with reality's somewhat stricter terms.

I know I have grown as a person in college. I have conquered mental and physical obstacles (8th floor, broken elevator) and have come out for the better. Sociology has taught me more than I am probably aware of, seeping into my being and opening my eyes to new things. I should remember not to belittle the practice of reflexive, critical thinking. Berkeley is opening the hatch and rolling up its sleeves in preparation for May when it will gently, I hope, push me out of the nest and into the dazzling sunlight. To the kitchen chaos and grand improvisation that awaits me, I say I am ready.