{"id":6736,"date":"2015-01-18T14:44:15","date_gmt":"2015-01-18T19:44:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/?p=6736"},"modified":"2015-01-18T14:44:15","modified_gmt":"2015-01-18T19:44:15","slug":"choosing-a-major-is-not-a-life-sentence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/archives\/6736","title":{"rendered":"Choosing a major is not a life sentence"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"RoboHead\"<\/a>By Kayla Samek–<\/strong>College is when many young adults are forced to make the daunting decision of what they want to do for the rest of their lives. The choice, however, doesn’t need to be a life sentence.<\/p>\n

Morningside College Freshman Allison Linafelter\u2013who is undecided what her major will be\u2013said:\u00a0 \u201c[ The decision] makes me feel absolutely terrified because I feel like one small decision I\u2019m making as just a teenager\/young adult determines the path the rest of my life will take. It is a main source of anxiety for me in college.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, people every where do not always go into the field of study as a career. In fact, many college professors do not hear the call of post-secondary education immediately after their own graduation\u2013some do not hear the call for years. Some may have even studied a completely different field than they end up teaching. One such professor is Dr. Patrick Bass, chair\u00a0of the History Department at Morningside College.<\/p>\n

Dr. Bass developed an interest in the environment when he was young. In middle school, he decided he wanted to become a Nuclear Engineer. Prof. Bass pursued this dream at a college in California. However, as he learned more about the controversial nature of Nuclear Power with the \u201cNo Nukes\u201d movement, he decided to focus on Mechanical Engineering, but found he was more interested in the applied mathematics than in \u201cbuilding the better bucket.\u201d<\/p>\n

In order to graduate, Dr. Bass was required to minor in a completely different field than his major and so went with history. \u201dReluctantly\u2013but I decided I would do history, because I decided it would be more fun to read history, \u201d said Dr. Bass.<\/p>\n

After graduating with a degree in Applied Mathematics, Prof. Bass attended graduate school for a short time before deciding to start his career. He was hired at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory as a systems engineer, which combined his knowledge of applied mathematics and previous experience he had received working for Rockwell Space Division, helping design the Space Shuttle. Prof. Bass, while working the the Jet Propulsion Lab was contracted out to NASA to work on space probes and to the Department of Defense where he \u201cdid some stuff there\u2026I can\u2019t tell you [what]\u00a0 or I\u2019d have to kill you\u201d said Dr. Bass, laughing.<\/p>\n

In his spare time he pursued a degree in history, \u201cI decided that was what I really wanted to do, after awhile, \u201d stated Dr. Bass.\u00a0 After he was awarded a doctorate, Dr. Bass went from various colleges and universities. But he found that \u201cI didn\u2019t like teaching 300-350 student classrooms,\u201d said Dr. Bass, and \u201cteaching content which\u2026 wasn\u2019t really my main interest.\u201d<\/p>\n

He originally came to Morningside College for personal reasons, after teaching some time at a small Liberal Arts college in Ohio. Dr. Bass came to Morningside in 1992, \u201cand I\u2019ve been here ever since.\u201d Even though he had thought Engineering was going to make him happy, Dr. Bass found his true passion in History many years after he graduated college\u2013which just goes to show that your life in college does not set your future in stone.<\/p>\n

Morningside Junior Megan Bailey was an Political Science major, and is now an English major. She is comforted knowing that her professors did not always stick with their intended majors throughout their life: \u201cmakes me feel that even if I can\u2019t get a job there\u2019s still a chance to do\u00a0 something with my life.\u201d College professors teach many lessons, but perhaps one of the most important they can impart on their students other than their degree is not a life sentence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Kayla Samek–College is when many young adults are forced to make the daunting decision of what they want to do for the rest of their lives. The choice, however, doesn’t need to be a life sentence. Morningside College Freshman Allison Linafelter\u2013who is undecided what her major will be\u2013said:\u00a0 \u201c[ The decision] makes me feel…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4287],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6736"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6736\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6737,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6736\/revisions\/6737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}