and my future slowly begins to stabilize

[tsukikage]

I finally have the beginnings of a real plan for my future.
After talking with my CLA advisor today, I've more or less decided what I'm going to major/minor in, and a rough idea of what I want to do with the next five years of my life. I mean, I don't have to declare just yet, so I'm gonna mull over it a little bit longer, specifically the possibility of maybe getting a Bachelor of Individualized Studies, but it's just a relief to have enough of an idea of what I'm going to do so that I can start planning for graduation.
So, here's the deal. I no longer have any strong plan of doing an ALL or CSci major. Instead, I'm goign to major in linguistics and get a minor in English as a Second Language. While doing this I will be focusing as much as possible on Japanese by taking Japanese through eighth semester, studying in Japan for a year, taking as many lib. eds. and linguistics classes as possible in Japanese-related areas, and possibly having my major project somehow relate to Japanese. If things go smoothly and I have a few credits to spare, I may pick up a CSci minor.
After graduating I plan to spend one or two years in the JET program, working hard to improve my Japanese and learning what I think of teaching English as a second language as a life-long career, and then apply to grad school. This is far enough out that I'm comfortable not knowing for sure what I'm going to grad school for, but I'm thinking I'd like to go to grad school in Germany in someting Japanese, linguistics, or TESL related, using that time to improve my German as much as possible, spend more time with my German family (Sofubo ga sono toki ni mada ikiteiru you ni...), gain a slight edge in any German-related linguistics studies I may do, and decide what country I'd like to settle down in. Between the TESL minor and having spent time teaching English in Japan, I should also be able to find a job tutoring English until my German skills are good enough to find a proper job.
The point is, I've decided that I don't want to pursue the ALL major, as honestly for all the classes I want to take in the major, I'd have to take too many classes for the major that I'm not actually interested in, and if I did a double major I just wouldn't have time to take as many of the classes that I want to. Also, regarding the whole wanting to make money when I grow up and thus thinking about CSci as a major... I realized that since I'm planning on taking college classes until I die anyway, the benefit of free tuition (from becoming a professor) would at least partly make up for that. I still don't know if I want to teach Japanese culture, Japanese language, linguistics, or ESL in either Germany or Japan, but this basic plan will prepare me for any of those routes.
So, yeah, unless I decide to go with a Bachelor of Individualized Studies the plan is a linguistics major, an ILES minor, lots of Japanese classes which will end up becoming a minor anyway, and the possibility of a CSci minor.

And now... I can finally stop angsting and focus on the classes I'm taking now, knowing that they will indeed lead me somehow to my future. ^_^

And now for something completely different: I'm probably going to meet with Murakami-san tomorrow (and yes, we're taking care not to let me get confused about the date), which I'll probably also use to my advantage as a reason to get to campus so I'll also go to the Rec and see Imagine Me & You.

Comments

[lugia222.livejournal.com]

☆やった～

[carve037.livejournal.com]

I didn't entirely follow all of that, I gotta say, but it is good to hear that you have a plan, and direction, and stuff. Yeah.

[akaneko.livejournal.com]

... why would you have to take a lot of courses you aren't interested in to complete an ALL major? ALL is one of the most flexibly-designed programs on campus (self-made majors aside) in terms of required courses, seeing as everything outside of the language track is a distributional requirement for TYPES of courses rather than specific course titles. (Well, unless they are indeed making people take 3001 these days, but that's only one course.)

That aside, it's always good to have a plan. Yay, less angst!

[tsukikage85.livejournal.com]

You're right... Thinking about it, I think the bigger problem was my inability to take most of my ALL major coursework while in Japan. In truth I may very well make that ALL minor a major, again if things work out well for me. I'm just not going to plan for it right now.

[akaneko.livejournal.com]

Indeed. Much as I myself have not completely thrown out the idea of a LING second major - but I've decided that I won't make my schedule revolve around cramming in courses for it that I might or might not want to take in the particular semesters they're offered in at the particular times they're offered at. After all, you only need one major, so if you have all your ducks in a row for at least one major, there's no real need to worry about scrambling around trying to complete another one except insofar as it's convenient to schedule around.

[voiceinmyhead.livejournal.com]

Congrats on coming up with a plan!