As you know, I said, I ended up dropping out of WCU. But that probably was one of the best things I ever did, since I subsequently discovered that my best talents actually lie in business, not science.
Sometimes, he answered, we have to make choices to preserve ourselves. It seems like you’ve done just fine.
Most of the people in my life now don’t know that I was once a geology major at Western Carolina University, which came right after I’d finished high school. It only lasted about ten weeks before I dropped out. While I’ve enjoyed activities such as going rock hunting, tracking and studying weather patterns, and even comparing different types of soil, I’ve never been in any danger of going back into STEM since then.
(In case you’re curious, while at WCU I lived in Walker Hall, which has since been demolished.)
After dropping out, I did a few semesters of coursework in paralegal studies and then some in a community college transfer program, along with a temporary detour through allied health, before finally finding my niche. I’ve since earned an associate degree in business administration with a concentration in human resources management, and I’ve worked in the fields of human resources, employee benefits, and insurance for nearly my entire professional career.
While my attendance at the N.C. School of Science and Mathematics for high school enormously transformative — it’s not (much) hyperbole when I say it saved my life — I did pick up a couple of attitudes there that needed to be de-programmed later. One of those was that the field of business was for people who valued money above all else; it wasn’t “academic” or “educational” enough the intellectually talented.
It wasn’t until I got into the community college setting that I actually started interacting with people who worked in business and discovered that there was a lot more to the field than I’d initially thought, and that it, too, involved a lot of intellectual work. That’s also when I learned I was good at it.
I don’t think I’d ever have made a good scientist. I’d primarily picked geosciences because I enjoyed the subject so much in school, and because it was in STEM which is where I thought I was supposed to go, but there are a lot of indicators that I wasn’t suitable for it.
I don’t like being outside in bad weather. I find the scientific method necessary, but boring. And I’m really not interested in the scientific aspects of the mining, fossil fuel, or environmental industries, which is where most geologists work. Nor am I interested in teaching, which means academia wasn’t a good “fit” either. My interest is primarily along the lines of popular science, not professional science.
Even after I admitted that I was good at business, for a long time I thought it would just be a waypoint until I found the (presumably STEM-related) field where I truly belonged. I was a good five years out of high school when I finally figured out that STEM and non-traditional fields for women aren’t my best fit.
Further, I had to understand that going into a traditionally female field of work did not mean I was giving in to the patriarchy, or misogyny, or whatever else you might call it. Rather, it’s simply being true to myself.
I’ve made more than a few mistakes in my life, including a couple of huge whoppers. But the older I get, the more I realize that dropping out of Western Carolina wasn’t one of them. The biggest thing I gave up was the chance to go through four years of college immediately after high school; and there have been times I’ve deeply regretted that decision.
For the most part, though, I’ve gained far more by dropping out than I’ve lost. After all, what good would a degree in geology be, if I wasn’t suited for the career field?
I’d have ended up doing what I did anyway: starting at the bottom of some other type of work, learning as I go, and working my way up that ladder. Or, on the other hand, I might have wound up forcing myself to go through and enter a field that I eventually come to hate. That wouldn’t have been good either, since I still have a lot of fun with popular science.
My acquaintance is right. I’ve done just fine, and while I’m glad to have re-connected with him (and hope to stay in touch, since he too has done well), I don’t have any desire to go back and finish that geology degree. Dropping out of that school and program wasn’t the mistake. Starting it was. Fortunately, this mistake was corrected before it was too late.