Good Ol' Alexander Graham Bell

"When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us."

This quote has given me direction and hope in my life, especially this last school year when picking a university, a major, housing, and what to do in just everyday moments.

This year, everything seemed to be falling into place. The day I submitted my application to BYU-Idaho, they sent me my acceptance letter. When housing opened, I was able to find three girls who were just like me, even though I knew nothing about them from a first glance. I had a degree in place for Interior Design. My grades were doing well. Everything seemed great.

But then Interior Design closed on me for this year. That doesn't just happen. Majors don't just close for one year. The one major I wanted for the one year I was coming. As stated by a speaker in Stake Conference today, "I don't believe in coincidences anymore. Everything happens for a reason."

I knew I needed to go to BYU-Idaho, but I didn't know what major to go into. For a while, I felt so completely lost in my decisions with college that I almost just wanted to not do anything with college decisions for a long time. So I did. I took a break from thinking about majors, about registration, about everything. Even with school right now, which probably wasn't the best idea. :) But hey, I have senioritis. It counts as a good excuse, right? :)

Anyways, these past few weeks have kind of tossed me around everywhere and have made me realize that, "Guess what? You're going to be out on your own in a few short months, and you aren't doing anything about it. Get working on it!" It all started when my roommate emailed me and told me she was so excited for college this fall. It made me realize that this might just be real. I might just be actually on my own this fall. Graduation meetings, emails from BYU-Idaho have made me start thinking about college again. Majorly.

I realized, with registration for classes and majors starting on June 4, I needed to quickly start narrowing down my choices of majors so that I had time to think about it so that it wasn't just spontaneous in June.

My mom told me to make a pros and cons list of any major that I even considered. Ones that didn't even appeal to me, but ones that I thought I would be able to do or have a future in. I honestly didn't think anything would come of it. I really didn't. But after some persuasion, I finally broke out a pen and pencil and wrote down some majors that I could see myself possibly going into.

Music
Web Design and Development
Graphic Design
Elementary Education

With music, I knew it was either piano or violin, and I could be an organ minor. I started listing off pros, and there were a lot. I thought I had found my major right there. But then I started listing cons, and was surprised to find that there were a lot more cons than I thought there would be. The list of cons surprisingly got to be longer than the pros and I stopped there because there were a lot more cons that I could think of. It's not that I don't like music, I really love music, but the cons that would come from having to practice music, memorize, learn theory, perform in front of people for a grade, I realized it would be like being in the Piano Festival all year long. That would not be fun. At all. If I was playing music simply because I love music, it would be different. And it was then that I found that I could be in a symphony composed of non-music majors and I wouldn't have to go to so many music classes. I could play music simply because I love it.

So it wasn't music.

I started on the Web Design and Development pros and cons list and only had a few pros, and the cons started running onto the page faster than I could write them down.

Same thing for Graphic Design. I really had thought beforehand that that was what I was going to do, but something wasn't clicking. I didn't realize that it might just be the major itself that I wasn't supposed to go into until I made my list. Pros were great, but the cons list started growing by leaps and bounds, which really surprised me. I honestly thought I was just in a pessimistic mood, but the next major I did the list for really surprised me.

I started doing the Elementary Education major list, and started with cons, since they were tending to be longer than the pros for the rest of them. I honestly could only think of about 3 or 4 cons and they weren't even that bad. I was forcing myself to try to think of something I wouldn't like about that major, but I finally gave up on the cons list and started on the pros. To my utter shock, I got a full page of pros, and more were spouting out of my head. I had so many pros start coming to my mind that I completely stopped writing and shouted, "I think I've got it! I think I know what my major will be!" At that moment, my mom smiled and was probably dying to say "I told you so" for making a pros and cons list.

When the door for BYU-Idaho opened, the Interior Design door closed. When the door of music and graphic design closed, Elementary Education's door opened wide open for me.

Everything seems to be going more smoothly ever since I've looked into Elementary Education as a possibility.

I would love teaching little kids, especially Kindergarten to 2nd grade. Can you see me as an Elementary school teacher? I sure can! :) I hope that if that's what I do, I can do it well. I could still bring my musical education into the classroom and even some graphic design elements for my bulletin boards, project outlines, I could buy SCHOOL SUPPLIES!!, write the kids names on the cute little sticker things on their desks, etc. I am sooo excited to do that!! SEOP's, reading to kids, and simply teaching them the simple things in life. My elementary school teacher's were my favorite people and I loved going to school because of them. I hope to someday be an inspiration for students and young kids in my community.

There is one catch that I've found though. If I taught somewhere, I would want to teach in Utah, but I'll only be certified in Idaho. I could easily transfer to BYU, but there's something that seems to be tugging at me, like I'm supposed to go and stay in Idaho for a reason. I hope to get my Bachelor's degree at BYU-Idaho and go into teaching later that year or a year or two later either in Idaho or in Utah. We'll just have to see how my life goes these next few years. :)

Don't look so long and regretfully upon the closed door that you don't see which ones have opened up for you. Keep your eyes open all the time.

Live. Love. Laugh. Grow.

<3