Identity Crisis

No, this isn't about hitting middle age and figuring out where your life has gone (known as the mid-life crisis, and is very common in men). Rather, this is about being a teen or twenty-something, and losing the direction you planned on life going.

When I started college, I thought I had planned everything out. I'd get a double major in chemistry and biology, apply to medical school in my senior year (which would be my third year, because I didn't want to stay the extra year doing nothing), go to a medical school up in NYC around my boyfriend, and eventually get married and have kids.

Unfortunately, life got in the way. After being bored out of my mind in gen chem, I switched to a complete biology major, and eventually decided to add on a minor in history. I still graduate in three years, which will be this coming May. I got a lot of arguments about this, saying that I should get a degree in some foreign language, or go study abroad or do something and really spend the four years intended for college in it. But my goal was still medical school, and I was going all out for it if I could.

So, this past year, I've been applying for medical school. I applied to 7 schools, and have so far been rejected from 5 of them, including one school I had a 50% shot of getting in at, my state school. I'm not sure what my chances are at the other two schools, but I"m not counting on getting in.

As a backup plan, then, I found a nice 1 year master's program in nutrition up at Columbia University in NYC. Seemed a nice alternative, and would help me focus on preventative care in my future practice. Again, unfortunately, when I asked one of my professors for a letter of recommendation, he refused to give it to me. Not because he couldn't write me a good one, but because he didn't think that I should focus on academics for my time between college and medical school, and knew I'd eventually get in. So, that plan went down the drain.

That happened on March 12th. Then, my boyfriend's mother died of breast cancer on March 13th (his sister also died last June 19th, and one of his closest cousins died sometime in August, right before I started school). I went from speaking with him (in a long distance relationship, mind you) for about 5 hours a day to being lucky to speaking with him for an hour a week. Yesterday, we broke up. It was our 3 year, 7 month anniversary.

So now, all my plans have been ruined. Needless to say, I'm constantly questioning where I'm going in my life. While I'll have a degree in May, it won't mean a whole lot to employers, because I either have to relocate to nowhere Wisconsin to get a good job, or people expect a higher degree and/or experience for hire. I'm a firm believer in the idea that everything happens for a reason, due to past experiences of mine. But I'm having a very difficult time trying to fathom why all this happened now.

This sort of identity crisis seems to be pretty common among my friends as well. One of my friends from middle school just dropped one of her majors, and is now wondering where she wants to go in life after graduation in December. One of my other friends had been rejected from dental school, and is now just holding on to school in an effort to improve his application. I mention my (now ex-) boyfriend above, whose friends are having to drag him out of the house in a futile attempt to get him out of his depression. He told me yesterday it was silly for me wanting to marry him, because he couldn't tell what tomorrow was going to be like, let alone 5 years from now.

Maybe this is even more common than my own experiences would tell me. We all go to college because that's what's expected of us, but come out the other end not knowing where to go from there. Or, as is my case, life comes at us too fast and leaves us blindsided.

I guess for now, I'll just go with the flow and see where I end up.

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