What does your box hold for your future?

To just run away

With a box of your future

Will you open it?

High school is coming to a close.  Yes, it’s still during the first semester, but think about it.  All the things you have to do by the end of the year create a ginormous list.  Take the ACT, apply for schools, get accepted to schools, send transcripts, arrange housing, try desperately to find a decent roommate, it’s never ending.   The pressures of college are so straining, but it didn’t even just start.  I can remember in eighth grade my Career Orientation teacher Mrs. McMillian expected to have our career picked out and at least three colleges listed as possible schools practically the first day we walked through the door.  That’s crazy.  What eighth grader knows exactly what they are going to do in life?  I guarantee that every one of the kids in my class has changed their desired profession at least once.  The pressure on kids no a days is intense.  Sure, I would hope by the time someone is in the eighth grade that they know whether they are squeamish from blood  and should stay away from the medical career, or if they love to cook and should be a chef.  Even being a senior I know so many people who still have no idea what they are interested in doing. 

I had always been curious.  When I was little I wanted to know how everything worked and asked thousands of questions.  Naturally, my dad thought I would become and engineer, but then I got ahold of my first taste of the medical field in sixth grade.  After that I knew the medical field was where I wanted to be.  The problem is that just saying the medical field has so many possibilities.  After doing a pig heart dissection I had so much fun that I thought I wanted to be a heart surgeon.  Well, that didn’t last long when I realized I would have a full person in front of me instead of just playing around with a heart given to us by our sixth grade science teacher Mrs. Newton.  Keeping in the same health field I talked to my mom who is a registered nurse and knows just about every health care career there is.  We came up with a Pathologist.  A pathologist is someone who studies diseases. At the time of eighth grade I had an obsession with the show CSI.  I would sit in front of the television all day watching the marathons thinking how cool it would be to work in the labs like the people on the show.  Mrs. McMillian wasn’t thrilled that I had decided to narrow my career so much because she didn’t know what a pathologist was; I was quite pleased when I stumped her. 

Somewhere between eighth and tenth grade I developed an interest through AP biology in developing insulin pumps and prosthetics.  This led me to being interested in Biomedical Engineering.  Sounds intimidating, right? Well, I didn’t think it was that bad so I looked into, and applied for a summer program at the University of Arkansas specially for biomedical engineering.  I got turned down.  This infuriated me so much that I decided to go into a new direction.  Physical therapy.  At my current place of employment that’s what I was practically doing anyway and I loved that it was with kids too.  Through and injury I realized that it wasn’t physical therapy that intrigued me so much but occupational therapy.  I loved how creative you get to be while working with people hands, plus I wouldn’t have to touch anyone’s feet!

Although my journey was very long with many twists and turns and indecisions I have finally found my future.  My future holds helping people through occupational therapy overcome injuries.  I am holding my box to my future, filled with the skills given to me by my high school.  As graduation day fast approaches my box is opening ever so slightly, showing me glances of what is to come.