I recently ran into a former English professor, whom I've been reluctant to tell about changing my major. It may be silly, but I felt awkward about it because he wrote a recommendation for my application to the education program. When I told two separate family members about it, they had different reactions. One said, "Well, just explain that education wasn't challenging and you wanted a challenge. He'd understand that." The other said, "You could say, 'I want to teach but I didn't like the system they were teaching us or the way they were teaching it.'"
What is interesting about these two reactions is that both said their comments matter-of-factly, as if they were just putting into words something I already knew. But the fact is, I wouldn't have used either of those two phrases to explain why I changed my major. Both reasons are true, but aren't comprehensive enough. I actually don't know what one or two sentences I could say, however, to simplify the massive (though fast) process that took me to a new major . When I tell people, I say something different every time.
I apologize ahead of time if this post (ok, let's be honest, it's going to take more than one) is just overly lengthy navel-gazing. It is often said to write what you know, but not often enough said that we really write to know. I suppose the main reason I want to write this out is so that I can figure out that phrase or sentence that the answer to "why I changed my major" really boils down to. (yes I just ended a sentence with a preposition.)
To start at the beginning...
I went into college certain that I would never change my major. There were multiple reasons for this. Because I love children and am passionate about education, it just seemed to make sense that I be a teacher. Sure, the public education system makes me crazy, but all the more reason to have good teachers in it, right? I knew I loved history, but I didn't see that as a career. Therefore, teaching seemed like the only job for me and thus elementary education the only major. I realize now that it was also based on pride; I wasn't going to be like "those people" who change their majors as often as they change their socks. I knew what I was doing and I was not going to take more than four years to do it.
Hahaha. Pride goeth before the fall. Only in this case, God was merciful enough that I fell off my high horse and into a green valley (mixing my metaphors here. I know.)
On September 25, in the middle of the fifth week of school, I felt myself to be a mass of tensions barely contained within a human frame. Since starting college two years ago, I have never had much school spirit. I've never felt like I belonged or really enjoyed college. Yes, there have been some professors I liked and a couple of good classes, but in all, it was a difficult time. I struggled to keep myself grounded in the present and not pine away missing high school or longing to be a stay-at-home mom. I prayed that God would use me in the place he put me, that he would enable me to love my classmates who made me feel like a two-headed alien, and that I would not just pick up a degree but actually grow as a result of these four short years. And yet, in July I told my dad that "School drains the life out of me," and really believed it. I went into this year feeling discouraged, that despite my prayers I had complained my way through the past two years, squandering them.
So it's not like school had been a picnic so far, but on this day the tensions began to come to a head. I felt both a strong desire to be a good student, to pursue my assignments and readings not "because I have to" but to actually learn from them. I didn't just want to speak enough in class to get a good participation grade, but to listen to my professors because I respect them. And yet it felt like half of what we were doing was just pointless busywork. I also vacillated between wanting to please my professors and not make waves, and wanting to completely rebel against the ideologies and structures that they pound into the heads of education students as gospel truth (while simultaneously saying there is no truth...). Should I do my best in classes whether they're meaningful or not, or scorn the entire program? And to what extent is it good and healthy to examine the situation and release tension by talking about my feelings, before it becomes complaining?
Into that mix add the tension resulting from my own background colliding with the established education system, which would no doubt be taught in any university. Even schools that explore alternative education models to some degree are still highly systematized. You are told, again and again, that for children to learn, you must have a lesson plan. Any good lesson plan must have an objective. And any objective must have a way of measuring it (e.g. a test or other form of assessment). If you just do fun activities that are disconnected from assessments and objectives, your children will not learn. While in class, I could start to nod and think, That makes sense. Then I would leave class and it was like a veil was lifted from over my eyes: I would remember my own schooling and that of the children I grew up with. In my entire educational experience up until college, I am certain my mother never wrote out lesson plans and objectives, let alone conducted regular assessments. We did do fun activities like visiting an organ company when studying Bach, "just because." And yet somehow I managed to learn or at least retain just as much as my public-schooled classmates. So how could I accept the mantra that students will only learn when they have objectives and assessments?
On this particular afternoon, after viewing "a few clips" (15 minutes of video) my professor had sent out for the next morning's class, which overlapped and just repeated information from our previous discussions, I texted two of my dearest friends, "WHAT IS THE POINT. WHY AM I HERE. Switching to engineering looks pretty good". At this point, however, I didn't seriously think of another major as an option; "switching to engineering" had been a running joke in my household since I started down the education path and found it lacking. After venting about all my various conflicting feelings to the same friends, I wrote, "I don't know that I would choose education if I was a freshman today but I'm too far in to change majors."
Underscoring these tensions was the contrast between my classes. Since I started college I was a history minor. My one history class last fall was the best 150 minutes of the week. This created yet another tension, with my love for my history classes contrasting with my general resentment towards my university in general. Three weeks into school I was already mourning the end of this class. I had one class left for my minor and I decided that I would do whatever it took to make sure I was taking a class from the same professor the next semester. Because of student teaching, education students can't take any non-education classes their senior year, which meant I had to finish my last history class in the spring semester.
The morning after my day of tensions, the spring schedule came out. I was reading my Bible, a little after 6:00, when I remembered this. Like the good, focused Christian that I am, I couldn't contain my curiosity and set my Bible aside for a minute to pull up the class schedule. I quickly put my professor's name in the search bar. Only to discover that he wasn't teaching any classes. Well, folks, this is a good reason not to let distractions come into your devotional times. The rest of my quiet time I had a hard time focusing because I was just crushed. My history minor, the only thing that had ever meant anything to me at KU, was coming to an end. Not only that, but my last class would have to be something just squeezed into my schedule, not a joyful and wonderful experience.
So, feeling rather dejected, I went to my 8 am class. I had started to actually make some connections in my education classes. I don't remember if I told my acquaintances that day about being sad about having only one history class left, but I did spend most of the next four hours with them chatting. During these two classes, we had a lot of space for "working" or for discussion, which meant that most of the class time was not spent learning class materials and a lot of time could be spent doing whatever one wanted. Thus, I had a fun morning in laughing with my classmates, though I felt a niggling sense of guilt for not being a "good" student.
That afternoon, I met with a student who was interested in joining a campus organization in which I'm a leader. She was a pre-law student and told me about how she likes reading about cases and studies legal documents in her free time. And it struck me that I don't download articles about ESL methods to read for fun. When I'm researching for a history paper, however, I get distracted by non-relevant but interesting articles and download them to read in my spare time. And if it made so much sense for her to be studying the thing that got her blood pumping, might it be possible that I should study history?
I went back to campus for my last class, at 5:00. Some of my same classmates were in this class, but for whatever reason the people I had laughed and chatted with in the morning were no longer interested in talking. By the time we got out, I felt sad, tired, and lonely. At almost 7:00 pm, I stepped on a bus to go home. And then I saw Amy.
She was the TA in my wonderful history class and we'd ridden the bus together before and chatted a little. I didn't know her that well (this was only the fifth week of class, remember), but when she asked how I was and I said "Okay" and she said, "Really?" I let it all out. I told her that I was in education and it was frustrating and I was maybe kind of sort of considering changing my major to history, except that I was concerned that if I did history I would just be doing it to enjoy college and would regret it later because I wouldn't end up with a job. We rode the bus to the same stop and then stood outside her apartment (she lives across the street from me) talking for another twenty minutes. She listened and reassured me and gave me great advice and encouraged me to talk to my history professor for his perspective (which I had wanted to do but I didn't want to bother him). And when I left the conversation, I thought clearly, "This was a God-moment, a holy coincidence. Whether I change my major or not, that was the hand of God." At the end of a weird day, filled with all kinds of emotions, it was exactly the ending I needed.
What is interesting about these two reactions is that both said their comments matter-of-factly, as if they were just putting into words something I already knew. But the fact is, I wouldn't have used either of those two phrases to explain why I changed my major. Both reasons are true, but aren't comprehensive enough. I actually don't know what one or two sentences I could say, however, to simplify the massive (though fast) process that took me to a new major . When I tell people, I say something different every time.
I apologize ahead of time if this post (ok, let's be honest, it's going to take more than one) is just overly lengthy navel-gazing. It is often said to write what you know, but not often enough said that we really write to know. I suppose the main reason I want to write this out is so that I can figure out that phrase or sentence that the answer to "why I changed my major" really boils down to. (yes I just ended a sentence with a preposition.)
To start at the beginning...
 |
| My imaginary future self |
I went into college certain that I would never change my major. There were multiple reasons for this. Because I love children and am passionate about education, it just seemed to make sense that I be a teacher. Sure, the public education system makes me crazy, but all the more reason to have good teachers in it, right? I knew I loved history, but I didn't see that as a career. Therefore, teaching seemed like the only job for me and thus elementary education the only major. I realize now that it was also based on pride; I wasn't going to be like "those people" who change their majors as often as they change their socks. I knew what I was doing and I was not going to take more than four years to do it.
Hahaha. Pride goeth before the fall. Only in this case, God was merciful enough that I fell off my high horse and into a green valley (mixing my metaphors here. I know.)
On September 25, in the middle of the fifth week of school, I felt myself to be a mass of tensions barely contained within a human frame. Since starting college two years ago, I have never had much school spirit. I've never felt like I belonged or really enjoyed college. Yes, there have been some professors I liked and a couple of good classes, but in all, it was a difficult time. I struggled to keep myself grounded in the present and not pine away missing high school or longing to be a stay-at-home mom. I prayed that God would use me in the place he put me, that he would enable me to love my classmates who made me feel like a two-headed alien, and that I would not just pick up a degree but actually grow as a result of these four short years. And yet, in July I told my dad that "School drains the life out of me," and really believed it. I went into this year feeling discouraged, that despite my prayers I had complained my way through the past two years, squandering them.
So it's not like school had been a picnic so far, but on this day the tensions began to come to a head. I felt both a strong desire to be a good student, to pursue my assignments and readings not "because I have to" but to actually learn from them. I didn't just want to speak enough in class to get a good participation grade, but to listen to my professors because I respect them. And yet it felt like half of what we were doing was just pointless busywork. I also vacillated between wanting to please my professors and not make waves, and wanting to completely rebel against the ideologies and structures that they pound into the heads of education students as gospel truth (while simultaneously saying there is no truth...). Should I do my best in classes whether they're meaningful or not, or scorn the entire program? And to what extent is it good and healthy to examine the situation and release tension by talking about my feelings, before it becomes complaining?
Into that mix add the tension resulting from my own background colliding with the established education system, which would no doubt be taught in any university. Even schools that explore alternative education models to some degree are still highly systematized. You are told, again and again, that for children to learn, you must have a lesson plan. Any good lesson plan must have an objective. And any objective must have a way of measuring it (e.g. a test or other form of assessment). If you just do fun activities that are disconnected from assessments and objectives, your children will not learn. While in class, I could start to nod and think, That makes sense. Then I would leave class and it was like a veil was lifted from over my eyes: I would remember my own schooling and that of the children I grew up with. In my entire educational experience up until college, I am certain my mother never wrote out lesson plans and objectives, let alone conducted regular assessments. We did do fun activities like visiting an organ company when studying Bach, "just because." And yet somehow I managed to learn or at least retain just as much as my public-schooled classmates. So how could I accept the mantra that students will only learn when they have objectives and assessments?
On this particular afternoon, after viewing "a few clips" (15 minutes of video) my professor had sent out for the next morning's class, which overlapped and just repeated information from our previous discussions, I texted two of my dearest friends, "WHAT IS THE POINT. WHY AM I HERE. Switching to engineering looks pretty good". At this point, however, I didn't seriously think of another major as an option; "switching to engineering" had been a running joke in my household since I started down the education path and found it lacking. After venting about all my various conflicting feelings to the same friends, I wrote, "I don't know that I would choose education if I was a freshman today but I'm too far in to change majors."
Underscoring these tensions was the contrast between my classes. Since I started college I was a history minor. My one history class last fall was the best 150 minutes of the week. This created yet another tension, with my love for my history classes contrasting with my general resentment towards my university in general. Three weeks into school I was already mourning the end of this class. I had one class left for my minor and I decided that I would do whatever it took to make sure I was taking a class from the same professor the next semester. Because of student teaching, education students can't take any non-education classes their senior year, which meant I had to finish my last history class in the spring semester.
The morning after my day of tensions, the spring schedule came out. I was reading my Bible, a little after 6:00, when I remembered this. Like the good, focused Christian that I am, I couldn't contain my curiosity and set my Bible aside for a minute to pull up the class schedule. I quickly put my professor's name in the search bar. Only to discover that he wasn't teaching any classes. Well, folks, this is a good reason not to let distractions come into your devotional times. The rest of my quiet time I had a hard time focusing because I was just crushed. My history minor, the only thing that had ever meant anything to me at KU, was coming to an end. Not only that, but my last class would have to be something just squeezed into my schedule, not a joyful and wonderful experience.
So, feeling rather dejected, I went to my 8 am class. I had started to actually make some connections in my education classes. I don't remember if I told my acquaintances that day about being sad about having only one history class left, but I did spend most of the next four hours with them chatting. During these two classes, we had a lot of space for "working" or for discussion, which meant that most of the class time was not spent learning class materials and a lot of time could be spent doing whatever one wanted. Thus, I had a fun morning in laughing with my classmates, though I felt a niggling sense of guilt for not being a "good" student.
That afternoon, I met with a student who was interested in joining a campus organization in which I'm a leader. She was a pre-law student and told me about how she likes reading about cases and studies legal documents in her free time. And it struck me that I don't download articles about ESL methods to read for fun. When I'm researching for a history paper, however, I get distracted by non-relevant but interesting articles and download them to read in my spare time. And if it made so much sense for her to be studying the thing that got her blood pumping, might it be possible that I should study history?
I went back to campus for my last class, at 5:00. Some of my same classmates were in this class, but for whatever reason the people I had laughed and chatted with in the morning were no longer interested in talking. By the time we got out, I felt sad, tired, and lonely. At almost 7:00 pm, I stepped on a bus to go home. And then I saw Amy.
She was the TA in my wonderful history class and we'd ridden the bus together before and chatted a little. I didn't know her that well (this was only the fifth week of class, remember), but when she asked how I was and I said "Okay" and she said, "Really?" I let it all out. I told her that I was in education and it was frustrating and I was maybe kind of sort of considering changing my major to history, except that I was concerned that if I did history I would just be doing it to enjoy college and would regret it later because I wouldn't end up with a job. We rode the bus to the same stop and then stood outside her apartment (she lives across the street from me) talking for another twenty minutes. She listened and reassured me and gave me great advice and encouraged me to talk to my history professor for his perspective (which I had wanted to do but I didn't want to bother him). And when I left the conversation, I thought clearly, "This was a God-moment, a holy coincidence. Whether I change my major or not, that was the hand of God." At the end of a weird day, filled with all kinds of emotions, it was exactly the ending I needed.
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