The story of how I came to minor in English is very different than the story of my major. I had to try several different majors before I found the right one. I came to OWU to be a Biology teacher, but I soon realized college Biology wasn’t like high school Biology–it was very hard, and I was grossed out by everything in the lab. So when Special Education finally became a major, I was on board and changed paths. Again, though, my expectations proved different than reality. I had worked at an agency helping special needs children with schoolwork, so I felt like I had a sense of how to keep them invested, but what I was learning in the classroom didn’t resonate with what I had experienced first-hand, and this made me start to question whether Special Education was right for me. While struggling in my Education phase, though, I took a Sociology class and loved it. When I explored Sociology online, I saw that I could get a lot of jobs with a Sociology major, which made me switch to Sociology and add in the English minor.
Unlike Sociology, English is not something I intend to pursue for a career. Instead, it is something I do for myself. During high school, I wrote for classes and always got really positive reviews from my teachers encouraging me to pursue writing as a job, so I started to write stories on my own time; my main genre was teen romance. I added the English minor when I realized that I wanted to take more classes to get more ideas and be exposed to more styles for my own writing. I also wanted to use my classes to keep my creativity flowing and improve on my stories. However, I didn’t think about publishing until I was talking to one of my friends who was starting the publishing process. It seemed like a lot of work but also a lot of fun. I realized then how proud I was of my writings and knew I wanted to try to share them with others later in life.
The future I envision for myself would combine both my Sociology major and English minor. Specifically, I’d like to help people and give them a voice. Right now, I think I would like to become a Probation Officer and write novels and stories during my free time. I also hope to become a Foster Parent, probably for older children, because it is harder for them to get into homes and they can get aged out of the system and end up homeless. With my training in English, perhaps I can write about the children I take in to give them a voice. It sounds chaotic, but I like to have things to do, and since I have always been a planner, I think I can make things work. I’ve learned that life isn’t perfect and doesn’t always turn out as planned, but hopefully my interest in the things that matter most to me will stay strong.