“The Search For Opportunity”
The question, “what is your next step” can be very exciting, but also very frightening for many individuals. Thinking about my future gives me anxiety every day with the pressure I put on myself to do everything possible to be successful in my lifetime. However, getting to this ultimate goal is not done without everything in between, whether that is one day or one year in length. This class taught me several things about my own identity in how I perceive learning and how I perceive my life as a whole. The learning I have retained in this course taught me that the step that is the most important comes when you get out of bed in the morning; it is taking everyday as an opportunity to improve your identity and to learn more about the things going on around you. SO, to answer the question, “What is my next step,” it is to put in that extra hour in studying for my upcoming final, it is putting in that extra rep in the weight room, it is opening the door for someone behind me; overall, it is trying to function as a model of a successful individual in today’s society. This course has opened my eyes to my current identity, and has given me an internal motivation to be an even better person in a world full of creed, crime, and corruption. I see past the selfishness and sins that many people incur in their life and see the good in everyone and everything. The connections that I have made in this class with a great professor and all the scholarly students who all have diverse visions towards the same goal has given me a security in my own future. It could be said that I learned that success is not measured by anything specific, but more of how I evaluate my own life at the end, if I enjoyed my life, and if I ultimately made myself happy with my actions. That is what the Whittier Scholars Program is really for, it gives students an opportunity to choose what they really want to study and what they really want to do after college that is based on their passions and what will make them happy. An assignment that really made me decide what will make me happy in life was choosing my big question in what I want to study. Rather than limiting what I can learn, it really expanded my field of study and I even factored in taking culture classes to learn more about how different cultures view sports which is not in the BSAD major. This class was used by me as a tool to find myself more and to find what I really want to learn. Some skills that I learned to be aware of is to be a critical thinker and an innovative thinker, which is often ignored in education today. These are what businesses are looking for in an employee; they want someone who can add to the innovation of the company along with being aware of how to solve problems within the workplace as well. So even in my own job in the future and in my own life currently, I am always thinking of how I can apply these skills, which will create a habit that I can carry on when I find my career and better myself as an employee. So everyday that I get out of bed, I challenge myself to be a better individual than the day before, and doing this continuously will be my “next step” and lead to an opportunity to be successful in my lifetime.
