Why did I go to College?

José says:

Why did I go to College?

I consider myself to be extremely fortunate when it comes to my education. Many people might think that being a 25 year old still in college is not exactly something to be proud of. I think it is actually a more rewarding experience having the added maturity that comes with 5 or 6 plus years of life. The reasons why I started late, in my view, are sort of a blessing in disguise. I would not be the person I am today without going through the things I went through before I entered college, however cliché that may be. The important thing is that I have found my true calling and that I made what I believe to the be right decision. A bachelor’s degree is a terrible thing to waste.

Ever since I was a little kid, I had a fascination with martial arts and I really enjoyed these types of movies. I remember renting Hong Kong Cinema kung fu movies at a video store in Condado and enjoying them a lot. Soon I started to notice how musical and pleasant the Cantonese language (main Chinese language spoken in south of China and the main language of immigrants in the USA and PR) was. I also began at this time to watch anime films and series, which also peaked my interest. Soon after I grew a fascination for the Japanese language as well. I began independent studies in which I taught myself how to be somewhat literate in Japanese. Later I had the good fortune of taking French in 11th grade, which really motivated me to excel in the language. I was probably the top student in the class and definitely the only person who took French that year who can actually speak it today. Seeing how interested I had become in languages, I was presented with the chance to move to Houston, where my brother lived, and finish off my senior year there. I immediately took as many languages as I could and it was great. In my senior year I would end up taking French, Mandarin, and Japanese. Once I finished high school, it was clear how much I liked languages. Or was it?

Languages were not profitable, nor were they a viable profession, at least not in the eyes of some of my family members. This compelled me to choose business as my major. That didn’t last very long. Within 2 semesters I dropped out and joined the working force. My career as a waiter saw me start small and would eventually have me making more money than the average government employee could ever hope to see. However, this was not fulfilling. At first I believed that changing profession would do the trick. I immediately changed to the computer industry and began designing web sites for a company. This also did not last that long. It was soon clear that I needed to get back into school, but my skewed view of professional vs. personal preference was still not strong enough to force my conviction. Hence, I rejoined school under the same major as before and thankfully it did not take long before I realized that I should just take languages.

To this day, I cannot think of a better decision in my life. This new turn has really strengthened my belief in myself. I now see the professional I can become. I have always been the type of person to give just the right amount of effort to complete a task, never going beyond that unless I was genuinely interested in something. With language learning, I do not have that problem, and since I learn what I truly want to learn, it really helps motivate me to work hard in other areas of my education.