Plans Change: Spring Quarter 2021

I'm writing this at 12:39 am on June 12, 2021, just after midnight on the last day of freshman year. It feels very surreal!

This quarter was probably the hardest and most rewarding academically of the year, but I felt like I had been building up to it quarter by quarter. I took a plunge into computational linguistics, a 400-level class with no prerequisites, with almost zero coding experience ("I like it so far," I said to my uncle, who works for Google, over the phone, only to have him ask again and have to admit that I really, truly didn't exactly know what was going on). I didn't have any final exams, but for the first time in my life I had to write a 10+ page paper for two classes in a span of a few weeks! In spite of my every attempt to start early, I ended up working right up until the minute before the deadline. Upon ruefully sharing this with my mom, she said "That's just how you are," and I'm realizing she's probably right about my perfectionist-procrastinating tendencies (a bad combination!) despite my wishes to the contrary...

In short, I've grown a lot academically and lost a lot of sleep this quarter, and have gotten a chance to dive deep into two potential majors I was interested in: comparative literature and linguistics. The conclusion: probably neither! Yes, computational linguistics is an emergent field with a lot of job opportunities (I think) and comparative literature would be a very cool merging of history, language, translation studies, and literature, but I can't quite envision myself studying them for four years. I haven't let go of them completely, though! This fall, I hope to take COM 200 and ENGL 202 to explore the English and Journalism and Public Interest Communication majors as other potential programs, and decide hopefully at the beginning of winter quarter 2022.

While studying took up the majority of my time, I also visited some really cool events held online this year. The good thing about events being held on Zoom, I realized, is that one can very easily drop into (and out of) panels, guest lectures, symposiums, etc, with very little preparation or planning. This spring, I visited the Global Literary Studies Symposium (April 30), a small part of the Undergraduate Research Symposium (May 21), and even part of the Translation Studies Student Colloquium (June 4) which was the culmination of a team-taught graduate student seminar. The nice thing about Zoom is that you can drop in "incognito" by keeping your video and audio off (to events that welcome guests, obviously!) and so it was a lot of fun to stand on the sidelines while professors excitedly talked about new courses and ideas they are passionate about and graduate students presented their translation projects from the quarter. I found these events a great way to get a feel for potential career fields and opportunities I might want to get involved in -- comparative literature, research, and translation studies -- and was deeply impressed by the intense knowledge that members of the UW community have to share.

One thing I learned about myself this quarter is that I've been really, really absorbed in thinking I know what's going to happen over the next four years. I know in autumn I told myself I wouldn't believe the "life control illusion," forgetting that God is in control of my future, but He's been showing me how hung up I've become on the "plans" I've made and how proud I've been in thinking that they will work out just the way I think they will. One verse that has been in my heart over the last few weeks was one that one of the pastors at Crossroads Bible Church gave a really wonderful sermon on:

James 4:13-17

"Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.' Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.' But as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil. Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin."

And this one:

Proverbs 16:3

"Commit your works to the LORD and your plans will be established."

I just realized how much I've been building a castle in the air, so to speak--my castle, the way I think it should be built, according to my interests and my needs and my worries. But these verses remind me that it's not about me--it's about God's plan and His purposes to change the world and bring others to Him. My plans about double majoring in English and Linguistics may be totally changing. But He knows what will happen, and He has a plan that is so much greater and so much better than any dream I might have.