When I began my time at Ohio State, I remember feeling one emotion more vividly than the rest: fear. Although I grew up only an hour away from OSU in the tiny farming community of Mount Perry, Ohio could be not be more unlike Columbus. None of my professors would know my name, my siblings, or my parents like my teachers in high school had. I knew I would miss the comfort of the familiarity that a small town had granted me, but I was excited to plan the next chapters of my life.
As classes started, I luckily found a rhythm and began to love both Columbus and OSU. After excelling in English and receiving encouragement from my T.A., I started writing for a newspaper and became the queen of interning. I quickly found that opportunities were abundant at OSU, and that as hard as I tried to control my future, it took its own course.
At the end of my sophomore year I happily declared a journalism major and I finally knew what I wanted to do with my life: move to New York, write for a magazine, and simply be amazing (which, in my mind, was a given as soon as you moved into any of the five boroughs.) I refocused my life and saw New York as the end goal.
Right before my junior year, I got a dream opportunity- a college rep position with Sony Music Entertainment. I knew the position would be a lot of work on top of my already burgeoning schedule, but it entailed getting paid to go to concerts, marketing new music around OSU, and listening and writing about your experiences. If I could sum up my dream career at the time, it would have been a combination of all of those things. I interviewed for the company and felt like it was where I was meant to be, with extremely devoted co-workers and my favorite musicians. Shortly after being hired, I found out that the next month I'd be flown to NYC for an annual company conference. I thought it was fate.
I excitedly boarded my plane, but when I got to New York I was surprised to find out that I was more in love with the city in my mind than in actuality. While on the streets, I wondered why no one smiled or seemed happy. I wanted my hotel room. And home. And… Columbus?
This realization shocked me. I had had this concept in my mind for so long that success meant a certain thing: New York.
Why hadn't I thought of what awaited me in Columbus? Through my four years at OSU I found firsthand that anything was possible in this city. Major companies routinely use our campus as a hunting ground, and several companies are headquartered in our backyard. Columbus… yes.
I found myself in a quarter-life crisis as I scrambled to mentally reorganize my entire future. I changed my major and found myself on the verge of panic attacks as I frantically spoke to career counselors in Younkin Success Center, had my resume revised in Career Services, and endlessly scoured job boards.
It took me to Winter Quarter to realize that despite my best efforts, I can't plan the rest of my life. I can prepare the best I possibly can, but that's it.
I'm graduating. I'm jumping headfirst into a world where nothing is guaranteed, in my control, or as I expected it to be over the past four years.
And I've made it my mission to learn to love it.
Haley Kish can be reached at kish.65@osu.edu.
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