I honestly can’t believe that this semester is over for me in two days. It has probably been the most stressful one, but it has surprisingly been my best in regards to my grades.
This semester I completed my capstone classes for my journalism major and my advertising minor. Handing in those assignments was the best feeling ever. I wanted to be handed my diploma right then and there and just go home.
Thankfully, I will be going home by the end of this week and I only have take-home finals to complete. But, that doesn’t mean I got to just glide through the last weeks of the semester because I have no scheduled finals.
Instead of having to study like a madwoman for five finals like I usually have to, I just had to work like a madwoman and complete an abundance of assignments. I haven’t fully decided yet, however, if I like having just projects due or having a final instead.
On one hand, I don’t have to study and try to remember facts and information that the professor taught three months ago, but on the other hand, I have to try and apply what I have learned the entire semester to this one, very large assignment.
I have never been good at taking tests. It is probably the one thing in life that I struggle with the most. Thankfully, those days are almost behind me. Taking a test is difficult, because there is only one right answer unless it is your opinion.
Doing a project, though, does take a lot more time and commitment, but you don’t have to try and memorize anything or try and find the one correct solution to a problem. I think that is why I got into journalism and advertising instead of a medical or engineering major.
Besides the fact that I am horrible at science and it kind of grosses me out and math is like a foreign language to me, I like the idea of being able to create something no one has seen before. With health sciences often there is one right answer and there is typically one way of doing something.
I have creative freedom – to a certain extent – to invent and design something that could blow people’s minds and open them up to something new and exciting. There is more room for me to be an individual and stand out from the crowd.
Yes, I know I might not make as much money as a doctor or I might not have the job security of a nurse, but I don’t want to be doing something for the rest of my life where money and job security are the only reasons for doing it.
I want to be passionate about what I do and wake up every morning knowing I am doing something that no one else has thought of doing or I have just designed something so out of the box that it’s beautiful.
I am not saying that people who go into other fields are not passionate about what they do; everyone has different goals and aspirations. But, I know I wouldn’t be happy going to work every day just to complete the same task as the five other people beside me.
I want to show who I am through what I create. And, in just five short months, those doors will be wide open for me to step through and achieve my creative dreams.
BECKY HILKER
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