Why Am I Doing This?

I'm probably the last person in the world who should be writing a paper about college majors.  In my years at Luther College, I studied everything from Business Entrepreneurship to Shakespearean sonnets to Improvisational Theatre to 4th Century Athenian Greek.  Along the way, I changed majors 5 times and, more than once, was totally convinced I'd never graduate at all.

Moving out into the real world is horribly scary for me. My degree is in Classical Languages, but I don't plan to teach; I don't want to go to grad school for a language; I don't want to be an archaeologist; in fact, I don't even want to do anything with my major at all. I simply loved learning Greek and decided to spend my college career studying something I enjoyed.

Problem is, I can't even converse with modern Greeks because the language has changed too much.  You know how difficult it can be to read Shakespearean English?  Try adding 2000 years of language evolution from Homer's Odyssey to Modern Greek.  Outside of the Vatican and select universities, no one left in the world speaks the classical languages.  If I went to Greece today, I wouldn't even be able to ask directions to the bathroom!

But, because of my apprehension about my likelihood for success in life with a major in Classical Languages, I became interested in what it really takes for someone to succeed in the future world.  Therefore, as a student at the Edward de Bono Institute of Thinking, I'm taking this once-in-a-lifetime chance to use my required research to answer the question all young people (myself included) are worrying over:

"How can young people set themselves up for success in life?  Especially when they don't know exactly what they want to do?"

I'm excited to find out!