Starting Over

I didn’t play team sports growing up. I ran track and took ballet classes, but my only team effort was quizbowl, so I am getting a big kick out of watching the Parkland Challenge competition on PCTV. Watching an adult stumble her way through asking questions to eight high school kids armed with buzzers evokes fond memories and feelings of nostalgia in a way that no televised sports event ever could.

When I went to college, I didn’t try out for quizbowl. I don’t even know if we had a team. I was so busy working to earn enough money to pay my rent and buy groceries that I never bothered to consider extra-curricular activities. I know that I missed out on a lot of great opportunities and experiences, but it just wasn’t a realistic option for me. College should be about exploring new ideas and directions, but for me, it was just something that I had to live through so that I could get on with my life. I lived through it, but I came out with no sense of what I wanted to do or where I was going.

After I graduated, I drifted around, worked in a zoo, traveled; I even spent some time in gradschool, but I was still wandering aimlessly. I realized that my life wasn’t going anywhere, so I decided to start over. My first step was enrolling at Parkland. Finally, over 10 years after graduating from college, I am taking advantage of everything college has to offer. I am taking different classes to see what interests me most and getting involved in extracurricular activities that allow me to explore those interests.

During my first semester, I took a Hospitality Industry course, which automatically made me a member of the HPI club. They cater a number of events for Parkland and host several of their own. I can’t remember having so much fun in school. It confirmed my growing interest in the culinary world. Since then, I have started taking classes in the Dietetic Technician program, where my interest is developing a passion for teaching about food and nutrition. To explore this new-found passion, I have been given opportunities at Parkland to write a column for the Prospectus about food and nutrition and to create a TV show for PCTV about making simple, healthy meals from low-cost pantry ingredients. I feel like I have already gotten more out of one year at Parkland than my original four years in college. I can’t wait to see what happens next.