Who Needs Growth, Change and Transition?

This is a guest post by Sonce Reese for Student Stories. 

When looking towards graduation, often one is thinking of a long lasting career, a really good life and let’s face it–– finances. Why else would one go to college, study, stress and burden themselves with the cost of a good education.

But how often does one think of growth, transition, and change? And why would they?

Sources say the average college student changes their major at least three to five times in their college career (Source: berkeley.edu) and why would a student do that unless they are growing, transitioning, and changing.

My story is no different.

Well, maybe a little.

Having seen my parents and grandparents pass away at a young age (me coping with the passing of people I loved and them – passing and never really experiencing life – they never saw retirement),  I decided to retire first.

None of that settle down stuff for me. I wanted to see the world and experience the things they never did (they were waiting for retirement to do them).

Retirement first woo-hoo, this is fantastic. So I moved away from home, traveled to foreign places, met new people, tried different foods,  and tried to experience as much as I could, until one day… I decided that retirement was over and it was time to go to work. I liked the jobs I had and the places where I was employed, but knew I needed to do something a little more meaningful and maybe help someone along the way.

So college it was… and off to college I went.

Because I worked in the business world anyway, I decided to become a Business major and found out rather quickly that I didn’t want to do that for a living (although I was very good at it.)

So I changed majors.

I really felt lost; like I had no direction or sense of purpose. All my life, I had worked in the business world, my family worked in the business world and business was all I ever knew. But it just wasn’t my thing.

It hurt a lot, feeling as though I had no plan, direction or sense of purpose because it seemed as though everyone around me did (I felt left out, shoved aside, and in a sense, worthless).

It was almost like “where do I go from here?”

I did know that I wanted the same things as other people: success, enjoyment of life, a place where I fit in/belonged, and financial security. What else is there? But for some odd reason, when I speak with people, it certainly doesn’t appear as though I want the same things, well at least it doesn’t come out that way.

So really, what’s one to do and then day I attended a seminar called “Communication Matters: Using Your Voice To Lead” which was presented by Steven D. Cohen, one of the professors at the University of Baltimore. At the seminar, we were asked to draw ourselves doing the things we were passionate about.

I was a blank.

After years of working and going to school, I found there wasn’t anything there.

Maybe I didn’t relax enough or had spent so much time on autopilot that I forgot to stop and smell the flowers. I forgot what it was like to retire. I forgot to grow; I forgot to transition; I forgot to change. I literally drew a blank – my tagline was that I was still painting my picture, still filling in my canvas.

I’m a Forensics major now (it’s the change that I made from the Business major) with aspirations, but I take it one day at a time because I want to know what I’m passionate about, I want to be there 110% and I want to be able to stop and smell the flowers too.

The first step in my growth, transition and change was admitting that I had a blank canvas, the second was being comfortable with the blank canvas, and the third is not forcing my direction.

My story, continues…

About the Author:

I am Sonce Reese, a Forensics major at the University of Baltimore. I support growth change, transition and the willingness to step outside of one’s comfort zone to become the best person they can become. My email address is sonce.reese@ubalt.edu