Undergraduate / 'I thought I was going to be a cowgirl' UT Austin Undeclared Transfer Essay [8]

If you were to ask me what I wanted to grow up to be ten years ago, you would have heard a different answer each time you asked. But as the years passed, the question "what do you want to be when you grow up?" became "what is it you are majoring in?" The variety answers I could come up with as a child soon reduced to one: "I don't really know... I'm uh, undeclared." This question of what it was that I would decide to do for the rest of my life soon became the question that haunted me day and night.

I have always been told to dream, explore, and discover: three simple words that can encompass a whole world of meaning. As a dreamer I've wanted to become many different things growing up; a doctor, veterinarian, filmmaker, animator, teacher, accountant, engineer, sociologist, and in kindergarten, I thought I was going to be a cowgirl. When I first began college I realized that it was time to take my boundless number of dreams, and to begin exploring in order to narrow down my choices to just one. It was time to stop living in a dream and take a step into reality.

My first semester in college was more than an eye opener. I decided to attend the University of Texas at Arlington for my first year of college in order to commute and save money. I enrolled in a course called "Majors Exploration" and this one class taught me more about myself in one semester that I have in my entire high school career. I discovered that I had a love for solving problems, taking challenges and had creativity at my fingertips. But at the end, this was still one problem I could not solve, as I did not have a clear-cut view of the direction I was going to take with my career. Something didn't feel right. I felt like I couldn't completely engulf myself into discovering who I was an individual at UTA. As a curious explorer, my thirst for knowledge and experience grew the more I researched for a certain career and even several universities.

One night, I woke up unable to sleep and restless, so I took the time to continue my research. I searched up "what should I major in quiz" and I took every single quiz on the first two pages of hits on Google. To my surprise, I stumbled upon the discovery that most of my results came out under the major of computer science. The idea of computer science highly intrigued me and as I looked into it more and more, I discovered that the University of Texas was one of the top computer science colleges in the nation. At the moment, I knew I had to give it shot.

UT stood out to me as a school where I can see myself discovering who I am as an individual in a home away from home, explore the various subjects and potential career paths through the courses offered, and finally settling down to decide who I am going to be as an individual. I want the chance to contribute my efforts and talents to the top university in Texas, and for once, this is one thing I feel absolutely certain about.