Change surrounds us on campus as the golden leaves are now at rest below the tree branches. Winter weather and the next term will be quickly upon us.
As you turn your attention toward registering for winter term classes, I encourage you to use this time as a University student to find what truly inspires and excites you. Dare to explore. Dare to try something new. Get out of your safety zone. If you are studying business, take an art class. If you are a music major, try a physics class. Enroll in a creative writing class if you are a math student.
Trying new things may be challenging. Or frustrating. Or daunting. But what if turns out to be exciting and rewarding? It is only when we push ourselves to try new things, ask questions and overcome difficult situations that we open ourselves up to new possibilities. Perhaps your passion is in a subject you have yet to embrace. Perhaps it will make you think of your chosen area of study in a new way. You have the benefit of choosing to attend a research institution with more than 270 majors.
It is easy to mistake education as reciting numbers and answers in order to pass tests. But education is more than that and it never stops. Einstein is alleged to have said, “Education is what is left after you have forgotten everything you learned in school.”
When I was an undergrad — the first in my family to go to college — I studied the history of religions and found that I was fascinated by the cultures and languages involved in my studies. I earned my doctorate in Sanskrit, and spent years studying subjects such as the religious literature of India and classical Hindu law. Sharing my passion with students and seeing them form an understanding and respect for others around the world was the most rewarding part of my work.
I was lucky. I was allowed to follow my passion. I hope that you will allow yourself to find and follow your own passion. I understand the challenges students face in their academic pursuits and how economic struggle can impede those pursuits. I also know that the search for one’s passion can overcome those impediments. Find your passion and pursue it. Possibilities will open up that you never knew existed.
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