I sure hope I'm going to be an English teacher in a suburban high school. I'm well on track with my schooling- if everything continues smoothly, I'll be golden. I'll live in the city and enjoy the metropolitan scene that I love so much, and I'll commute about twenty minutes to the school I work at. If I have the time, maybe I'll even coach too. All of this is assuming that I get a job after graduation-if not, I guess I'll move back in with my parents until I do.

I figured out what I wanted slowly and through a lot of internal conflict. I resisted teaching and even the study of English for a long time, because the work is difficult, the pay isn't incredible, and everyone is always talking down about the humanities. But I found that when I tried to pursue other things, I was just not happy, and at the end of the day, that's what matters, right? I did a placement for a semester in a middle school English classroom and I loved it. I am passionate about what I study and I'm having the time of my life doing it.

To pursue anything else at this point seems ridiculous, and I keep on finding more and more practical value in what I study. The humanities are so important to mankind. You won't build a suspension bridge or cure cancer with books, but, by God, you can teach people that we're really all the same. We are all humans; we all want and need the same things. We struggle with the same fears and insecurities. It's a beautiful thing to study and promote, and in an age where the world keeps getting smaller and smaller, the humanities will be critical in ensuring that people continue to treat each other like people.

Talk to your parents, your friends, a counselor or adviser, those to whom you look up and who are doing what they love. Find a way to make money with the things you love to do, and hopefully the rest will take care of itself. That sounds optimistic, and maybe I'm not established enough yet in a career to give that advice, but it's what has worked so far for me.