By Nathan Mackey
I selected my classes, and I’m not sure how I feel. I’m excited for programming I think, I’m taking it this summer online (I’m not thrilled about the online part), but regardless I think that’s one of a few classes in which I really feel I’ll be able to see immediate value in the form of a concrete skill, and I think that will be satisfying. The rest of the classes I’ve signed up for I’m not sure totally intrigue me. This is where uncertainty begins, my major, my future career, I’ve been having pretty big doubts. I chose nuclear engineering on a whim, a click on the pre-preview form and a promise to myself that I’d figure it out later. The appeal was in the magic of the wonderful science it seemed to entail. SL physics in high school is probably the reason I’m not a pre-med student in denial, I was captivated by the late chapter subjects, Feynman diagrams, leptons, all of it. It was the coolest thing I’d learned in school (still might be), and that was what I really looked forward to in college, and so far I haven’t exactly had that experience. I know it’s super early and I’m still in the slog of freshman level courses, but even those classes I have taken which are a bit further along, like materials, are so unyieldingly pragmatic. I revile the pragmatic, I feel I’ve always been surrounded by people dying to do something real with what they learn, the phrase “more real life applications’ ‘ may be the most common feedback to courses it seems. I don’t feel the same. I want the knowledge to understand, I’m much more interested in the reason an equation takes the form it does than using the formula to build a bridge. This is where I think I’ve become more disenchanted with my major. The future I see for myself in this is probably one of data and equations someone else figured out, looking at numbers, plugging them in and seeing if it all checks out, there’s no magic in that for me.