I have always been bad at making decisions. Whether it be deciding where to go for dinner, what color shirt to wear to class, or something which came so easily to so many people: choosing a college major, the nature of making a choice and sticking with it was not my specialty. I spent my entire first semester at the University of New Hampshire fulfilling nursing prerequisites because, in my head, I was absolutely convinced that I was going to be a nurse. I had decided I wanted nursing to be my major just before I went away to school. Since it was too late for me to apply to the program, I had to earn extremely high grades in several required classes and then apply into the program at the end of the year. However, by the end of semester one and many nights spent cramming for a human anatomy and physiology exam, I had quickly learned that nursing was not the ideal career for me. I then thought that I wanted to major in business. In fact, I was even convinced that I wanted to plan and organize weddings. I took a class called "Program and Event Design" and then soon learned that business was not my forte.
Now, I no longer had any idea what I wanted to do with my life. The only thing I knew for sure was that I could safely rule out nursing and business. Seeing as I could not seem to make up my mind, when I went home for summer vacation, I had a long conversation with my mom about what a good major for me would be. She encouraged me to look at what I enjoyed doing for fun as a kid, and to try and make a career out of that. In my case, my true passion when I was younger was teaching. I spent almost every single night downstairs in my basement playing school and forcing my younger brother and sister to be my students. Before I knew how to read, I would take picture books and make up my own words, going along with the pictures from the book. My mom used to take me to Staples, and we would by decorations and school supplies so I could decorate my basement like a classroom. I even used to ask my elementary school teachers for their old worksheets so I could give them to my siblings when I would force them to play school with me. So, if choosing a career based off of what you enjoyed doing as a kid was what you were supposed to do, then being a teacher was my calling.
After having this conversation with my mom, I began to seriously consider teaching as my career path. Within the next week or so I began working as a camp counselor, at Camp Clark. I went into the job thinking that it was simply a summer job and nothing more. I never considered the feeling of pure joy I would feel when I had children waiting for me to arrive at camp and tackling me as soon as they saw me. Or the feeling of accomplishmen...
