From Purdue to California, from school to work, from dreams to reality. My experiences and knowledge have broadened my horizons over the past year. Even so, I feel that they expanded enough to direct me toward a rewarding career, doing what I love.
Purdue is a good, sorry, a GREAT school that I am so grateful to call my own. I came to Purdue freshman year having no idea what I really wanted to do with my education and career path. I started with a major in Movement and Sports Science with the intentions of going to PT school after my first four years. Well, that did not last very long because I quickly realized that math and science were not my fortes anymore. I started to contemplate my decisions and rethink the things I truly loved learning and doing; I rediscovered my passion for photography. With the encouragement of my parents, I decided to change my major to Photography and Related Media, so that I could soon turn my dreams into reality.
I began this change, unknowingly, as soon as I switched my major after freshman year. I am in the College of Liberal Arts, and more steadily becoming aware of its benefits. I slowly, but surely, worked my way into the lifestyle of an art and design major with the help of my other courses. Little did I know, studying Liberal Arts has made one of the biggest impacts on my visions and goals. Every course I have taken through Liberal Arts has expanded my knowledge beyond the narrow/specific study of Photography. I have been able to obtain such a diverse education, learning anatomy and physiology all the way to economics. This is what makes the College of Liberal Arts stand apart from other colleges keeping their majors strictly in their specific dynamics.
Not only has the College of Liberal Arts taught me a lot about many different subjects, but it has taught me to expand my horizons outside of the classroom as well, and to get involved with things beyond the boundaries of this university, or even this state. For example, I successfully landed a job at a day camp for elementary aged kids in Sunnyvale, California this past summer. I thank my diverse education for the courage to explore outside of my focus, and gain experience that would, indubitably, earn me a career. Although Camp Galileo was not directly improving my photography skills, it was improving my networking and professional skills. I was able to travel and live somewhere I had only dreamt to have an opportunity in. I discovered that when I looked outside of my living quarters during school, I found a whole world out there. This world was somewhere that I wanted adventure in, explore through, and learn from. I have gained so much knowledge over the last 3 years that have helped me with more than just photography, because I was able to take a chance and experience something completely abstract in comparison to what I am getting a degree in. Even so, I realized that it was not abstract, because I have been learning about things for all majors, and have been able to tie every single subject to each other and then to photography.
That statement above makes it clear how much Liberal Arts has done for me as a student and a professional in general, not just for one subject. The depth of my education grew physically, as I traveled and made connections with people and places, and mentally, as I feel well educated in so many subjects that are still relate-able to my major. I saw the world on the outside when I was in, and after experiencing a small portion of that, I have discovered that, well, Liberal Arts... there is a whole world in there, too.
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