It has been a very busy and productive two months. Keeping up with four graduate level courses and working twenty-five hours a week, in the evening, has consumed most of time. It is hard to relax the little time I have for myself and I hardly find the motivation to do the things I like. Often I find myself thinking about my life and where it is going.
Today I questioned being successful in my professional career and making an impact in the world that would make it better. I found myself thinking why did I not get into science during my undergrad and begin a path to becoming a scientist or computer engineer the kinds of people who are currently having the greatest impact on life as we know and will be for the foreseeable future.
I wonder if there are others like me, who went to school those first thirteen years, longing to grow up and go to college where school is fun. Others, who like me, when undergrad was finishing up wanted out of the system, away from the institutional life yet found themselves going back for more. Others, who like me are thinking, what the hell did I get myself into.
I long desire to be a librarian at a small liberal arts college. I want help students and professors conduct their research. I want to teach information literacy. My greatest desire is to lead a study abroad trip to archives and special libraries to do research with students and another professor on rare and/or unique collections of materials. What gets me thinking (too much) is I have no idea what I would do with my life if I did not desire to do this.
I would not be a doctor serving a small community or researching a cure for cancer. I would not a physicist inventing ways to turn science fiction into reality. I would not be a computer engineer fabricating the next great leap in technology. This bothers me some days. I know I have the potential to be a inspiration educator in the future, but I have a problem molding students out of the humanities and socials sciences to people who would be in the same boat as I am in.
It feels so frustrating to think that many others of my generation and I will go to school for nearly twenty years to make ourselves great thinkers and doers, only to face a world that may have no place for us. It is scary how fast the world can change and how unstable trends and current technologies are. Have I prepared myself to be a part of the world?
I am content with a simple and humble life. I will not be satisfied however, until I know have made a difference in the world. So here’s to aspiring that we all can do some good for the world; to be and do all that we are capable of. I am a librarian (that’s the plan at least) and I will make an impact.
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