As I am about to graduate from Northeastern in now 2 weeks, I have a bunch of papers to write, reflecting on my four years of college. What did I learn? Do I believe I chose the correct major? What was the most important class I had? Would I do this again?
And I think that as much as I did not believe in the choice of my major for the first three and a half year of my college career, I can now reflect upon it all and tell you that yes, I would do this again.
There are many thing I can complain about and I am going to go quickly over it, but the one thing I can and will remember for a long time is that finally, after 4 years of college, I can see how my education can fit in the image I have for my life.
So what am I complaining about?
Well the course I chose is not the easiest and most social one I could have chosen. In 4 years, I lived in 3 different cities, 7 different apartments and 2 different countries. I had experience with 4 different companies, and pretty much did 4 different jobs in those. I met many people that I had to say goodbye to and only few of them I will see again. It put a strain on my relationships with my long-time friends, new-found friends, and family. I can't recall how many times my parents blamed me for not giving enough news, my friends from France for not coming back enough or not spending enough time with them when I was home, my brothers for not caring enough about what they do with their life. It has been hard, countless times I had to admit that going abroad forced me to abandon friendships or projects (my high school rock band is a perfect illustration of this) and every time I was thinking this, I was seriously asking myself if it was all worth it. I think this is the most difficult thing that I had to do all along those four years: move on, quickly, adapt to change, rapidly, and not look back. It is even harder to even think of leaving now that I finally adapted to Boston when people who knew me before knew I did not want at all to come here in the first place. By the way Cesem, thank you for not allowing me to change tracks...
I also often complain that I did not learn enough, that I did not learn real life things. It is true that I learned how to do a SWOT, how to calculate a dividend and build a balance sheet, how to implement a marketing campaign for any kind of product, from the yogurt to the make up and even the insurance. I can also recognize what a professional powerpoint presentation is and I know who Porter is. But when you take all of them one by one, it is pretty useless. I don't want to work in finance, I don't want to be the VP of marketing at Johnson and Johnson because I apply a la lettre my marketing classes. When I look at my peers I feel like they are going to go on having very successful careers in whatever they studied and I am really glad for them. They will be very successful at applying concepts and even innovate on those concepts to climb the ladder. I always felt that I was maybe not studying the good thing because I could not see myself in the corporate world, doing my 9 to 5 building Excel worksheets. On the other hand I did not really know what I wanted to do either.I think now after those four years I cna honestly say that it is not what I learned individually that proves me that I studied the right things. It's more knowing that whatever I do later, I will be able to apply those concepts the way I want to and they also brought up concerns and worries or interests I never knew I had. Put it as the existentialism of education. Thank you Sartre, you will always be in my heart.
Now that I think about it, the biggest complain is this life of nomade. But after all I look back at a previous post and I say that it is what I want. True. I have been talking with certain persons that are in the same situation as me: going abroad, leaving friends and family, even for a short period of time, and I think after this experience, we are quite never the same. I have to admit, I am afraid to go back. I am afraid of the re entry shock, not finding things as I remember they were, and having changed too much to feel at home again. I want to keep on being a foreigner because at least when I am one, I know I am not at home and I don't expect to be. John Denver said once "it's good to be back home again", he was not talking about his home, he was talking about his new-found home Colorado. Maybe I found a new home that is the world. I remember taking a class at Northeastern that was called "Cultural Aspects of International Business" and in that class we had speakers come, talking about 3rd generation kids, pretty much people who at a young age started to move around the world and don't really have a heimat. I never moved as a kid, grew up in the same city, same neighborhood, same apartment for 18 straight years, had the same friends, the same schoolmates, so obviously the shock of moving out this much in 4 years was even bigger. Also a big change is that my parents moved out when I was a Freshman. It is not even that I don't want to go home, it is just that I don't have a home anymore. I have been in limbo for 4 years with my stuff spread around the world: clothes in Boston, Lyon and Paris, guitar in another city, bass in london, furniture in Boston and Lyon, friends in Paris, Lyon, Boston, New York, London and everywhere else in the world. And I have to admit that I kind of like that. I like that my life is hectic.
You might think I am contradicting myself but I am really not, I thought this post through and I have a conclusion. I am saying that the hardest in 4 years has been to move around a lot. The deed has already been done, my friends and family in France that I still have after 4 years are used to it, they don't blame me for leaving, they still love me and they still are proud of me, they know who I am, they've seen how much I changed and they know I changed in good. They are going to be happy whatever I do because they know that I can do the sacrifices needed to do something I like, since I already did them and most importantly that I think the decisions I make, that if I do something it is because I know I am going to be happy doing it. Would I do this again? Definitely, without thinking. I can think of all the bad thing it did to me and it is nothing compared to the good: my relationship with my brothers and parents strengthened, especially with Edward, I know what I want to do with my life, I am much more open to the world, I think by myself not through the ideas that people put in my head, I discovered a life I like, I met wonderful people that forever I will be happy to have met, people who changed my life, I am particularly thinking of 2 that will recognize themselves if they read this post, S and A thank you. I finally reached a point where the persons I really care about do not blame me for leaving anymore, Nicolas, Adelaide, Maman, Papa merci d'avoir ete la pendant ces 4 ans.
Now that I reached this point that I know that whatever I do I'll do it for a reason and that nobody will blame me for it, I'm telling you Boston, I'm going to stick around for a while...
Posted via email from Josephine's posterous
