Planning out your life is impossible. Circumstances change, people change. New information comes to your attention and you shift course. But at the same time, it's helpful to have a sense of direction, a sense of purpose, to guide your thoughts and actions. Having an idea of where you want to end up can provide this sense of direction.
I think of navigating life in this way like hiking through the wilderness. Setting your sights on a distant mountain frees you from having to expend energy on wayfinding every second of every day. You can focus instead on where you're putting your feet and on enjoying the more nearby scenery. As you're making your way across the plains, a different mountain might come into view. Or, maybe, the coast of a large body of water. You might decide this new destination looks better than the first mountain, so you re-orient in that direction. Maybe you'll visit the first mountain someday, maybe you won't. And so it goes: at any point in time, you are hiking towards something, but that something can change as frequently as you want it to.
Continuing with this analogy: as you make your way in your intended direction, you will likely encounter other people (depending on how remote the trail is). If you are able to describe where you're headed, these people may be able to give you advice, having previously explored similar places. This is another reason it's helpful to have a sense of direction: you can make it easier for other people to help you. The more detail you provide, the more specific other people can be with their advice. And, if you're visibly inspired about where you're going, other people are often more inspired to help you get there.
Finally, maybe somewhere along your path, you see a sign post indicating that there is a town a few miles away. If you have a sense of where you're attempting to go in the near future, then you might choose to go stock up on appropriate supplies: if you're headed up the mountain, you might get some gloves. If you're headed to the coast, you might get some sunblock.
I personally have found the advice "always be moving forward on a path, even if you're often switching paths" to be very helpful so far in my education and life. I have also frequently used the strategies of asking others for advice along the way and stocking up on various forms of domain knowledge and technical skills if I can foresee a major use for them farther on my intended path.
In the next two sections, I share the relatively abbreviated story of how I ended up with a major in applied math, minors in statistics, economics, and geography, and an upcoming five more years of school in environmental biostatistics. The first section is the more straightforward narrative that I might share in an interview or application. The second section is the more nuanced, more human, and likely more relatable.
All's clear in hindsight: one version of how I ended up on my current path
In early high school, the societal issue that I cared about the most was environmental sustainability. In my junior year of high school, I took an environmental systems class that illustrated the close relationship between environmental and economic issues. My family also talked fairly regularly about the issue of economic inequality in our society. When I started college, I decided to study applied math with an emphasis / minor in economics and potentially also one in environmental science. The applied math major appealed to me because it would give me some concrete problem-solving skills while also allowing me to explore other areas.
During my freshman year, getting involved with Engineers Without Borders and reading outside of classes helped me to see more connections between economic development, environmental issues, and equity, as well as to recognize that if I want to help large numbers of people in the US and abroad, my background and skill set are well-suited to working at a systemic level: influencing policy and directing resources to where they're most needed on a large scale. (For more thoughts in this vein, check out my reflections On Having an Impact.) I also self-confirmed my affinity for data science through an introductory data science course.
In my sophomore year, I began working as a data science intern on the environmental health team in Earth Lab (see The Power of Showing Up and Reaching Out for the story of how I got involved in this research). Through being in Earth Lab, I learned that it is possible to harness large, publicly-available data sets to answer all kinds of environmental questions. This inspired me to take some classes in remote sensing and geographic information systems (GIS) in the department of geography. Finally, the specific research that I was doing on the environmental health team (helping to investigate statistical associations between air pollution from wildfires and human health outcomes) inspired me to learn more about public health.
In the fall of my junior year, I took a health and medical geography class taught by Colleen, my research mentor. This course confirmed in my mind that public health lies at the intersection of economics, the environment, and human well-being. I began talking with professors about pursuing a graduate degree in public health that utilized data science tools, and stumbled upon the field of biostatistics. In the spring of my junior year, I had the chance to take classes in general statistical modeling and spatial statistics. My enjoyment of both of these classes confirmed to me that biostatistics with an emphasis on environmental health (which often uses spatial statistics) would be a good fit for me in graduate school.
In the summer between my junior and senior years, I spent a lot of time reading scientific papers about air pollution epidemiology and childhood asthma to complement our collaboration project with the Denver Department of Public Health & Environment (again, see The Power of Showing Up and Reaching Out). This helped me gain familiarity with some environmental health methods as well as with what is generally known about the health impacts of various environmental exposures.
In my senior year, having chosen the path that I wanted to take in graduate school, I spent some more time exploring. In addition to my technical applied math and statistics courses, I took a graduate-level development geography course to gain a more academic perspective on the history and current theory on international development work, a course on statistical collaboration which taught students how to communicate and work effectively with domain experts so as to provide statistical expertise on various projects, and a philosophy course. These were the most purely enjoyable classes I took all year.
Ultimately, all of my exploration has helped me to identify a discipline that combines many of my interests and will allow me to develop a sufficiently general toolbox of statistical skills that I will be able to continue working on a variety of projects over the course of my career.
Twists, turns, and opportunity costs: another version of my story
The section above might make it seem like I knew what I was doing at every step of the way. During most of my years at CU, however, I felt like I was leaping between career paths: economist, international development expert, GIS scientist, environmental epidemiologist, biostatistician. And there were many more divergent career paths that I considered but did not spend as much time exploring, in part because of my motivation to stay in STEM (see Pursuing STEM, Motivated by the Humanities). In terms of courses: at various points along the way, I envisioned getting minors in computer science, journalism, sociology, or philosophy. I also certainly experienced (and continue to experience) plenty of decision paralysis and impostor syndrome.
Finally, my story would not be complete without mentioning that in between my junior and senior years of high school, I had decided to pursue a career in classical music performance, and spent much of my senior year of high school preparing for and carrying out auditions for college programs in music. One of the reasons I originally chose to study applied math at CU was that it seemed like a relatively flexible double-major alongside a major in clarinet performance.
Writing about my journey in this way also obscures the opportunity costs of my decisions: there were many experiences, both professional and personal, that some peers had but I did not have in college. For instance: I have zero experience working in the private sector. Many of my friends have learned lots from doing internships at companies over the summer or during the academic year, and I did not explore this avenue. In the personal realm: I spent less time on social and outdoor activities than I might have otherwise enjoyed.
Overall thoughts:
For each of us, I believe that there are many ways to lead a fulfilling life. I suspect that I could just as easily have fallen onto a different career path and felt just as fulfilled had my opportunities and mentorship been different. That said, given the opportunities and mentorship that life does present us with, how can we go about choosing a path to follow?
I have found an iterative process to work the best. Start out on one path (maybe one that will give you a general set of skills), then, if something comes along that looks interesting, check out that for a while to see how it feels. This might sound completely random, but if we simultaneously spend time figuring out what we really value in our lives and work, then I believe that the paths that appear and look appealing will tend to be at least somewhat complementary to the one we're already on.
The most important thing to remember is that, especially in an era where many (if not most) people have more than one job during their career, switching gears and changing paths is not a bad thing. Each time you re-orient, you will likely retain what you gained in your previous orientation. And in the end, having a more unusual path can often provide you with a less common and more compelling skillset.