2019-20 Year-in-Review

The theme of this past year has been self-exploration on my part.

In my previous Year-in-Review, I had mentioned that I was no longer as passionate about engineering as I had been when I started at the University of Cincinnati (UC). Over the course of the past year, I have started to diversify my courses in an attempt to find myself and what I want to do for a career once I graduate. After one semester of self-exploration, I thought that I should not switch my major until I knew for a fact which major I would like to pursue. I was under the impression that declaring an “undecided” major would be either a waste of time, or not worth the effort. After bottling how I felt, I talked with my academic advisor and had a heart-to-heart conversation with my parents, all of whom convinced me that there was no harm in “transferring” to an “undecided” major and that if I knew that I would not “fit” in engineering, it could be better if I transferred out now.

Therefore, I made the decision to enter into UC’s Exploratory Studies program. Upon meeting with my new advisor, we discussed into which majors I may likely enter (finance, economics, mathematics, et cetera) and which classes I needed for a degree in each. We then created a schedule for the next semester with classes which engineers do not take but most other majors do, and a sampling of classes from each in order to determine which I preferred. I hope to learn which of my choices would be the best for me and eagerly await the results of this “experiment.”

In continuing to self-explore, I took four semesters of Italian to learn the language of my ancestors and to be able to communicate with my cousins who live in Sicily. Now, I am able to obtain a Certificate in Italian Language & Culture from UC with only one or two more classes. My proficiency in the language has progressed dramatically since I was last in Italy for my European Rail Tour. I now feel confident that I could hold basic conversations in Italian and practice at home occasionally with my mother, who studied the language independently a few years ago. In the future, I would like to return one day for a longer stay to brush up on my conversational skills and see more of the country.