When I was deciding what I wanted to study in college, I was torn between the creative side of me that wanted to pursue a personal passion and the practical side that wanted to find a lucrative and reliable field. I was certainly leaning towards the former: I had always been interested in art and drawing and crafting since I was a very young child, and my parents, thankfully, encouraged me to study something that I would truly enjoy. As a little appeasement for my pragmatism, I started to learn about graphic design, the seemingly more commercial version of my childhood hobbies, and after building up my portolio, I decided to pursue it as a major.
But, in my mind, this wasn't enough. In wishing to acquire more credentials than just one solitary major, I was determined to acquire a secondary degree in a more practical area, like mathematics or economics. I went to a standard public high school in Minnesota and did fairly well in all of my courses, most of them unrelated to creative fields, so I felt that I could certainly handle and benefit from another major.
I entered The New School with a declared major in Communication Design at Parsons and an undeclared path at Eugene Lang but with the idea of pursuing economics. I had thoroughly enjoyed my economics class in high school, and it was one of the only departments at Lang with which I felt I had concrete experience with. But unfortunately, my first economics class at the college was less than successful; instead of being enjoyable and stimulating, it merely felt boring and forgettable. It became quickly clear to me that, while I may have relatively excelled in such topics in grade school, I was not inclined to dig much deeper into them.
It did not take too long after, however, to locate the right path. Only a semester later, I took an introductory class for the Culture & Media major and knew that that would be my field of choice. I liked how it was still an analytical area of academics but essentially related to my design work, which is all about exploring different methods and solutions for communicating information across various media. Through the Culture & Media curriculum, I became greatly fascinated with thinking critically about the ways people are constantly entertained and absorbing information, and with the majority of projects in this program being essays, I happily saw my already-solid writing skills improve even more.
After a couple more years taking several courses in Culture & Media, I did realize that the major didn't necessarily fulfill my initial desire for practicality and application in the real world, as it was a much more theoretical field than I was expecting. But I paid little mind to this because I had learned by this point that it really still boils down to just studying something you love, regardless of its logical significance. While it did not carry any promise of paying the bills, the liberal-arts major I landed on is one I thoroughly enjoy and is relatable to my design major, and I felt finally content with my decision to stay with the dual-degree path. Hopefully, in my post-graduate life, being not just a good designer but also a better thinker will help me in any professional job I do or even in conversation with peers and mentors.