No Day but Today

Now that I'm about to graduate, I wish I had studied other things.

And it's really quite frustrating because I have enjoyed my International Affairs major.  There are 5 main focuses within the IA field - International Relations, Comparative Politics, Community, Security, and Political Economy.  I chose to focus in Comparative Politics and Community, as topics such as human rights and genocide fascinated me.

I knew coming into college that I was going to study IA because I wanted to work for an international non-profit organization, or an NGO (non-governmental organization), such as the Clinton Foundation, because I was going to save the world!  Little did I know at that time that there is still so much work to be done in the United States.  In 2009, approximately 43.6 million Americans were living below the poverty line.  That is nearly 15% of the population.

According to National Association of State Boards of Education, when the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was created in 1975, the legislation included the goal that 40 percent of the extra costs of the inclusion of special needs children into regular classrooms would be covered by the Federal government.  However, according to the 2002 budget, the government has only provided 18 percent of the extra costs for special education and it has been up to the states and local governments to foot the rest of the bill.

Did you know?  One in every four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime. -- An estimated 1.3 million women are victims of physical assault by an intimate partner each year. -- An overwhelming 85% of domestic violence victims are women. -- Historically, females have been most often victimized by someone they knew. -- Females who are 20-24 years of age are at the greatest risk of nonfatal intimate partner violence. -- Most cases of domestic violence are never reported to the police.

I decided to join AmeriCorps after learning the harsh realities of these domestic issues.  So, now that I have an idea of what I want to do with my life - nearly 4 years after starting college - I'm starting to have regrets.  I say regrets in the sense that I wish I could have known what I know now so that I could have studied other things; things that revolved around these pertinent issues in the areas I wish to build my non-profit career.

I know it's not worth fretting about.  I know that some people don't even go into a field related to their major. It's still a very scary thing, though.  Tomorrow is a new day.  Tomorrow means more life experiences, a heightened skill set, and a deeper sense of self.

In the words of one of my favorite productions, “Forget regret, or life is yours to miss.”