I would like some input on a decision I’ve been turning over in my head for a while. I dropped out of college in the midst of mass disillusionment with college and my place in it. I didn’t have an area of interest as much as I asked any other student who I respected or liked who their favorite professor was — and then I simply took their classes. I didn’t know how to pick what to study and figured that anyone interesting can make any topic interesting. If you can communicate enthusiasm and passion, then paint drying becomes a worthy topic. Have you ever had a friend who was so funny or informative or creative that you could go on a walk with them, point at random things, and say, “Talk about that,” and you’d hang on every word? Well, that’s sort of how I did college.

Until they asked me to pick a major halfway through. (“Sir, you must declare a major.”) There happened to be a few professors I liked in the Political Science department so I decided to go with that. Well, a few of these professors left (sabbatical, retirement) the next semester. This happened concurrently with my explorations with partying and drugs, and since I didn’t see the reason in continuing a pointless, soul crushing, and ’SPENSIVE journey, I dropped out to pursue partying as much as I could.

About a year later, I noticed at that I hadn’t brushed my teeth in about a month. It’s funny the little things that cause us to stop and think. I know some people that brush their teeth even when drunk before going to bed, but I was not one of them. This small realization amidst partying non-stop started a cascade of realignments within myself that eventually led me to applying for and joining AmeriCorps, a year-long bout of community service, mainly to interrupt my lifestyle. And as I’ve talked about before, even with guarded expectations, it still completely changed my life. It was the first time that the inborn belief that I ought to be doing something special was reflected by the reality that I was doing something special.

That ended in November, 2014, and for most of 2015 I lived in Michigan working for organizations I served under AmeriCorps. I also had this primal urge to move to Colorado, a state I view as idealistic, progressive, outdoorsy and athletic, beautiful, self-sufficient, and so a week ago I moved here (yay!!!).

Part of the plan in moving here is to establish residency in Colorado, so that if I wanted to enroll back in college, I could at an in-state tuition rate. (The difference being huge, something like 20k for out of staters, 5k for in-staters for University of Colorado.) But the thing is… although I know much more about myself, am not as completely disillusioned with a College Education, I still don’t know what to fucking major in. This frustrates my attempts to even apply to college. If I don’t know what to do, I think finishing to finish is wrong-headed and disingenuous.

If a major is a specialization, then it ought to be something I’m at least (a) interested in or (b) something I want to grow proficient in. I’m interested in everything (disaster relief, psychiatry, education reform, governance and government, law, behavioral economics, evolutionary psychology, physical fitness and nutrition, etc.), so that guidepost doesn’t quite help. But there is something I want to grow more proficient in, something I also think I have a bit of a knack for. And that’s motivating, coordinating, leading, challenging, and developing young people.

What major is that?

I don’t think I want to be a teacher. I’ve shadowed teachers before and I don’t think it would hold my attention, there’s so much of it that I wouldn’t abide by, and it’s too sedentary.

Also, I’m very cause-oriented. I don’t like grinding away to make money, and if something isn’t directly connected to serving and helping others, I’m planning my way out and onto the next thing.

The good news is that, no matter what, I’m not joining school until the spring of 2017 (becoming a resident of the state puts me in a holding pattern regarding college). But I think about it a lot.

I always feel guilty talking about myself on hubski. I feel like I’m asking random strangers to indulge me. But because this website is much more to me than a random assemblage of anonymous usernames, I feel like it’s less a stab in the dark than a request of a distant, patient relative. So, whatcha got hubski? Should I finish school? If your job sounds at all related to anything I’ve said, what is it that you studied in school? What did you wish you studied?