SELF DOUBT IN AN UNDERGRADUATE DEGREE

BY CHARLOTTE AYAZ

As the end of the school year approaches, all I can think of is how relieved I will feel once it arrives. I will be finishing my third year at York University, and it is with the combined cynicism and impatience of a high school senior that I look towards my final year.

I remember receiving my acceptance to the theatre program the day of my audition, the way I cried tears of hope and excitement when I read it, and I cannot help but wonder now if I have let that person down. My time here could not have gone more differently than I had imagined. I lost conviction in the path I had chosen not long after my first semester and switched majors my second year. I struggled emotionally to adapt to the stress of leaving home for the first time, and my naivety put me in traumatic situations that I had to overcome. I was forced to come to terms with my own lack of life experience, to part with the arrogance that I did not even realize I had clung to so strongly coming out of high school. I lost friends and made new ones.

I do not know if I will be leaving university with all of the knowledge and confidence that I had hoped to attain when I enrolled. I do not know if even obtaining a Master’s degree will give me that knowledge. I do not know if the choices I have made were the right ones, or if my life would have gone in a better direction had I had chosen differently. I relayed these feelings to my dad, who told me that a degree is not valuable simply for the information you are given in your classes, or in your textbooks. It is a life experience, and it equips you with the skills that will allow you to make the transition into the real world with ease. It is an opportunity to mature into the adult you will need to be, and it will give you just what you put into it. I like to think that he is right.

Even after three years in my program, I have no idea what I want to pursue once I graduate. Maybe I will figure it out next year, but maybe I will not. Either way, I am learning to accept the fact that the future will most likely look nothing like I expect it to, and that regardless, I am capable enough to find my way.

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