I keep rethinking what I want to do with myself for a career. Since (nearly) infancy, I have been saying that I do not, under any circumstances, want to be a teacher. It is the very reason I did not apply for the Teach for America program with the rest of my ambitious friends. Well, NOW I'm thinking it wouldn't be such a bad gig. Especially if I could be an undergraduate class professor/lecturer and teach basically whatever the hell I want. High school teaching (something I was even more adamantly against) doesn't even sound that bad anymore. I could be that person that would help high school kids love literature again (or, perhaps, for the first time). I remember having an easy time relating it to my other classes, but I also remember seeing people who couldn't make those connections. Maybe that would help them like to read? IDK.
My plan after graduation was always to take a year or two for breathing and possibly traveling, and then applying to law schools on the East Coast and in Canada. But now? Well, now I don't know what the heck I want.... again again again. I am actually very insecure about the level of my analytic writing, even though I consistently do well in all of my classes. I feel like TAs just get so excited to see papers that have actual arguments, that they forget to look at the quality of what I am saying. And I fear that if I were to pursue comparative literature and academia, I would be called out on my lack of talent and insight.
This fear is something that has plagued me since high school when I realized exactly how badly read I was in comparison to one of my archnemeses. No... we weren't really like that. But I did admire her in that resenting sort of way that I would imagine occurs with archnemeses. I feel like I would have to spend this entire year reading nonstop, going to language classes, and practicing my writing in order to be on the level that I want to be. However, I know that I do not have the discipline to do that in this year of breather that I am planning.
And I don't WANT to spend it in academia but not in academia. I want to spend it visiting friends. I want to pay off my credit card debt. I want to go to Electric Daisy Carnival with my friends. I want to visit my family in Chile. I want to experience (relative) freedom: I don't want to plan my life around exams, papers, etc.
Law has always interested me as well, but I know that I would also not really like to be a practicing lawyer. I LIKE theory, international law, and abstract concepts that most likely will never be realized. I think the only way I would practice, is if I went to Israel/Palestine and somehow could defend the detainees. The Israel-Palestine apartheid, international humanitarian law, and maritime law are what got me thinking about law school in the first place. I like a lot of things and I am good at most of what I like! Except photography. I am NOT good at photography. But I digress.
I know that I have posted about this a couple of times in the past, so thank you for putting up with my endless angsting about scary things like the Future, Academia, and the like. But here I am again: completely confused.
I suppose either way I'd be able to stay in academia, now, wouldn't I?
As far as continuing comp lit, I think what I really need is someone with a PhD or an MA to tell me that my analytical skills and my ideas are good enough for grad school. And with law? I just need to know if that's what I want. Why can't I go to both simultaneously? Fff. As if I could afford that. As if my stress levels wouldn't be high enough with just one of the two. The nice thing about comparative lit, however, is that I could analyze my literature through legal scopes. And I suppose that I could even someday maybe win some money after either law or grad school, go back, and do whichever I didn't do.
I had this discussion with my mother a few weeks ago. She tried to cheer me up by telling me that the reason I'm taking time off is to think about things and rest. She reminded me that I hate undergrad, but of course, she couldn't tell me (at all) if grad school was anything like undergrad. So I pose my question to those of you who have gone on to higher higher education: is grad school the same as undergrad which is the same as high school? Was it worth it?
I can't wait until I have to make my decisions.... jeeeeezus. Why can't my mom make all of my decisions for me? Oh right... because then I would have ended up and some semi-private school alongside the beach-- oh wait. Sorry, I'm still bitter about the fact that my parents are too poor to afford NYU (yes, I got in), but too rich to get any financial aid. And I know this one girl who has basically a full ride to UC Irvine, is currently studying abroad in Spain, not because she's super smart, but because she's 'poor.' FF, her mother doesn't even WORK... hell, the woman doesn't even speak English. But, again, I digress.
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