College degree do-over

I've already said how I really wish I could go back and do my Bachelor's degree over. How if I could go back and do it over, I would.

Honestly, Elementary Education just wasn't for me and I found that out when it was way too late to do anything. I enjoyed working with children but not in a classroom setting; not teaching them.

 I've said how I thought once I got into my degree program more that I would grow to love it but I didn't. I went in with the goal that I eventually wanted to be a librarian and specifically a school librarian.  Honestly, most of my classes were enjoyable but when it came to actual student teaching and field experiences, I didn't enjoy them all that much.

I just never really grew to enjoy the teaching aspect unlike my degreemates. They all wanted to be teachers. I went into the program never really wanting to be a Teacher. I was fine with teachers but I didn't think I wanted to be one necessarily and I was right.

I don't necessarily know if it was partly do to my experiences that just really turned me away from teaching or not. I honestly believe it was partly because of them. I just didn't have that great of experiences overall. Perhaps I just never quite had the "right" experiences. I just wasn't that fortunate.

I have my degree in Elementary Education and while it's been at least somewhat helpful, I feel it's a bit of a worthless degree for me. I have my Teaching License but I really don't think I'll ever use it. I don't want to use it. Honestly, I'm just done with Teaching.

I'm honestly a lot happier with my Master's degree in Library Science than I think I ever was with my Elementary Education degree. I feel like I've finally found something I really will enjoy doing.

But if I could go back and do things over I would in terms of my Bachelor's degree. The downside of going back and doing things over is that I probably wouldn't have met my wonderful advisor nor would I have met my professor that I still keep in contact with. Both have become such important people in my life that I don't know what it would be like if I'd never met them. I couldn't imagine my life without them in it.

Still though, I can't help but think what I would do differently if I could. What would I have gone after instead of an Elementary Education degree.

Honestly, I don't even know. The problem is that I have so many interests and things I want to do in my life that it's hard to narrow things down. In fact, I honestly feel that's why I became a librarian. I wanted to do so much in my life and couldn't decide so I became a librarian so that I could be a little bit of everything. That's at least how I see it.

I mentioned before how I used to want to be a Dentist but how the amount of schooling plus the math courses involved stopped me. I didn't think I could handle it all especially being that I wasn't exactly strong in math to begin with. Then I thought perhaps a Forensic Scientist but one that worked in the lab. But again, the math involved and then there was the amount of science courses. I even thought about just being a Scientist at some point.

I just really loved Science and wanted to do something with it. But I really didn't know what I wanted to do. Even when I began college, I went into the Arts & Sciences degree area thinking I eventually wanted to do something in that area.

But I eventually strayed away from it; the whole science thing. I still enjoyed it but my weakness in Math courses was keeping me away. I knew it would eventually become a problem. I was just ok in Math and that wasn't going to be enough.

So anything involving Science was pretty much out for me. It was during the time that I was working at the library and starting to realize just how much I really enjoyed it. I mean really enjoyed it. I remember watching the Children's Librarian and really thinking how I might like to do something like that.

So I thought about focusing on being a librarian. But I still wasn't sure what I wanted to do for my undergrad. When I decided I really wanted to be a librarian and looked at what I would need to do, I knew I needed to get a Master's. But as for an undergrad, I could basically do anything.

I remember thinking about going after an English degree at one point. For some reason, I liked English to a point and thought maybe that would be something. I also remember looking into a Creative Writing degree since I really enjoyed writing. But again that was thrown out.

I'm not sure when I decided to look into a School Librarian. I know one of the programs that I first looked into at Oklahoma State was School Library Media.  It was a graduate program and my cousin sent me the information. In order to apply for the Master's program a degree in Education was required. I remember thinking Elementary Education would be a option since I liked that age range of children. When we visited the campus for the 1st time, I remember meeting with someone who asked about which age of children I wanted to work with. Younger or Older. I remember getting information about both Early Childhood and Elementary Education and ultimately decided on the older children which meant Elementary Education.

Why I didn't take more time to explore and figure out what I really wanted to do, I'm not sure. But I didn't and now I regret it.

I guess if I were to go back, I might consider going back for an English degree or Creative Writing or something. Just something I would have enjoyed even if it wasn't something that wasn't going to get me anywhere.

Perhaps I would even go after some sort of Science degree. After all, I still loved Science and even though I struggled with College Biology as far as the tests were concerned, when it came to the labs, I was fairly good at it. In fact, my TA even asked when I wasn't going into a Science field at one point. I guess there was something about me that he saw that would've been good for a Science field.

Recently I've been thinking about Reading. Some sort of Reading degree. Someone graduated with a Doctorate in that field the same day I graduated with my Master's, which got me thinking about why I never thought about something like that before. I'm not even sure what a Reading degree would involve but it certainly sounds interesting.

Then I got to thinking about some other things I enjoyed; other classes I enjoyed that perhaps could have turned into a degree. For instance, Psychology.  I took a course and I remember finding the subject interesting. I must have done really well, since I got at least an A- in that course, but I never considered pursuing it for some reason.  At least not until recently.  Recently I've developed more of an interest in Psychology for obvious reasons I feel. Since being in therapy, my interest seems to have grown.

I also remember enjoying things like Art. I remember taking an Art history-type course and loving it. But again, it wasn't something I considered pursuing.  I guess I just thought I liked Art but not enough to pursue it.

I loved music and still do. At some point I still want to go back to college and get my minor in it. Same with Spanish. I want to get a minor in Spanish too.  Perhaps I'd even consider a 3rd minor and go with Psychology.

But why I never thought about pursuing some of these things as regular degrees? I'll never know. Honestly, I would go back but I still don't know what type of degree I'd really want.

One of my graduate classmates I met back at Web Institute, pursuing a general studies degree and took classes in a variety of subjects. Perhaps that's the type of degree that would be good for me.

I guess that's it. I feel like I have a lot of interests but don't necessarily know which one to focus on. I like Science, Music, Writing, Reading, and to some extent English. I also spend a lot of time doing stuff with computers. I remember playing around with HTML and web design software like Geocities when I was a bit younger. I've tried to make my own Myspace layouts and also for a Bloopdiary I had.  I've dabbled in graphic design a bit if you could call it that. I used to play around with Adobe Photoshop, designing Wallpapers and banners for forums. As for video editing, I'm fairly good at using Windows Movie Maker software and have created several fan videos by editing footage together.

But I don't know which would be a "good" focus for a degree. Even knowing that I was going to go on to get a Master's in Library Science and that it really didn't matter much what I went for, doesn't make it much easier.  I know librarians bring all sorts of degrees to the library science field.

Still though, thinking about what I would go back and get instead of an Elementary Education degree, I'm not sure what I'd go for. What would be good to go for? What would help me as someone wanting to be a Children's librarian? What would I enjoy pursuing? Really enjoy? How would it benefit me in the library field? Would it?

If I were to do over my Bachelor's degree, what degree would make me feel as though my undergraduate studies were worth it?