During high school I took four years of Latin, and then I assumed my love for ancient Rome would die a painless death and that would be the end of it. I assumed fairly incorrectly, as this semester I took up the classes HIST341 (Ancient Rome) and LATN102 (Latin 2). Though Latin 2 was more of a review for the four years, it reinvigorated my passion for Latin, and Ancient Rome supplied a newly found love for classical history. After planning my schedule for next semester I realized that there were only so many classes that I could realistically take that were outside of my major, minor, and concentration. This became an ongoing struggle for me and I made several schedules trying to map how I could sneak in a mythology class among the other required classes I need.
This really opened my mind to the sheer amount of classes that I want to take but may not be able to in the span of these four years. This is a hard reality, since the large bulk of “education” or classroom learning will be over at the end of senior year. Considering this, it can be very difficult to find the balance between filling requirements and branching outside of a major and learning for the sake of learning. Though there is the possibility of getting several degrees or going to graduate school and further learning, it is not the path for everyone who earns an undergraduate degree. For me, I decided to add a minor in Ancient Greek and Roman studies and not to give up my love for the classics. If there is ever a time to learn, it is now.
As expected of freshman year, I watched my friends switch, love, drop, or find their majors and add minors and start honing in on what they want to study. The beauty of freshman year is that all of the decisions that we make are still changeable. It is lucky that they are, because many of the decisions made might be the wrong decisions. Though I added this minor in Ancient Greek and Roman Studies, I have no idea if I’ll actually keep it and continue loving it. Thankfully colleges, and especially larger universities like UD, keep this flexibility possible and let students flit around and try different areas of study before deciding.
