I was terrified and excited all at the same time. I was 18 and I was leaving home for an extended period of time for the first time. This wasn't like a trip to my grandma's house for the summer or anything of the sort. This was different.
I was going to be gone for months at a time.
I had graduated high school in 2013 and didn't enroll in college immediately after graduating like everyone else. Instead, I took the year to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I remember my father, whom has always been very supportive, gave me a pen and paper and suggested I come up with a list of things I thought I would be interested in.
So I did.
I wanted to be a Veterinarian, I didn't mind being a Forensic Scientist, and I also wrote down that I wanted to be a Pharmacist.
Veterinarian
Now, I'm going to be honest, I had a passion for animals that stemmed from childhood. I had tons of stuffed animals and I would always set them up in my bedroom and act as if I was the teacher. Now that I look back on it, some of those stuffed animals weren't in their element and you would never find an elephant in a classroom, but I thought nothing of it when I was a child.
I simply enjoyed the company and I loved being exposed to different animals through stuffed animals. To this day, I still love stuffed animals and I have a whole storage bin of them tucked away in my closet.
Anyway, I was all fine with becoming a Veterinarian and even got my certificate to be a Veterinary Assistant, as a first step, the next year. It was fun, I enjoyed it, and even though I realized there were all of these nasty diseases that animals could pick up, I didn't mind it one bit. This was actually something I could see myself doing, but I could not see myself going to school for 8 years.
Forensic Scientist
This may be slightly weird, but I have always been good at Chemistry and I have always watched a lot of Crime Investigation shows.
And every single time I watched one, I was immersed and fascinated even more. Therefore, I could actually see myself doing something like this because it was something that constantly evolved and it was always something new.
In short, it kept my interest and I didn't think it would ever get boring.
Therefore, I kept this route in the forefront of my head and it certainly helped that I knew where to start:
A Chemistry Degree!
Pharmacist
Like with becoming a Forensic Scientist, I knew that I would need a Chemistry degree as a starter for lack of a better words. However, I wanted to do something more hands on and involved. There was never anything wrong with being a Pharmacist, but I just envisioned myself having a certain level of involvement and this wasn't it.
Thus, it became my last resort.
Conclusion
Unfortunately, as long as people existed, there would also be crimes not too far behind. Don't get me wrong, that itself is very horrible, but the employment is needed and someone has to do it. I found something that I could see myself doing and something that wouldn't just die out over time. For those that have troubles figuring out what they want to do, I think that is a great deciding factor or at least a start to figuring out what you want to make a career out of.
All in all, with the help of my dad and through the process of elimination, I figured out before I enrolled what I was going to major in. I could see myself being a Forensic Scientist and this was also something that would still be relevant for as long as the Earth continued to spin.
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