“Career”- something we stress on for most of our lives and still fail to actually find peace in what we achieve. The case with most of us is that at the age of approximately fifteen we are asked to take the biggest decision of our life that is, to choose a path for ourselves. A path which will lead us to our destination. Unfortunately, most of us aren’t aware of what we actually want from our life at that age and hence, fail to take the right decision for ourselves. It results in ending up in a place we never wanted to be. According to studies, an individual is most productive when he’s happy with his work and when he isn’t happy with his work it results in stress, anxiety, and depression. George Eliot quoted, “It is never too late to be what you might have been.” This quote is to live by and keeping that in mind I would say, a person should have the liberty to change the path when he feels like he doesn’t fit into it and when he feels that the path wouldn’t make him happy.
Let’s get into knowing Alexis Cook, a student at the Northeastern University who came there to be an architect. She moved away from her home in a quest to design buildings. Surprisingly, at the 2019 Research, Innovation and scholarship expo on the Boston campus, she presented something entirely unpredictable point of view. She presented a proposal to grow and study ovarian cancer cells in three dimensions while she was expected to present something related to architecture. She had a change of heart while serving an architecture co-op in the facilities department at Boston’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
Cook said, “what really drove me every morning was helping the patients”.
This change of heart led to fading of her pre-planned path to 5 years undergraduate plus a master’s degree followed by a lifelong career in building design. Though she’ll be graduating with a degree in architecture, according to her she is a pre-med. She aiming to apply in medical schools while doing clinical work. According to Cook, pursuing architecture did not go in vain as she adapted problem-solving techniques, to communicate, to collaborate and to convert ideas into hard-lined edges. The crux of everything is, one should have the liberty to pursue happiness in whatsoever field one may find it. As in the end it’s all about finding yourself.
Priyanka Rawat