Cunningham

Kira Cunningham

Seminar in Composition

Amy Flick

October 28, 2019

Predetermined Paths

I am a freshman in college. Female. What does that mean for me? For my future? I see all

those around me on the same path as myself. Do they have the same future and end goal? The

question exists because an expectation exists. An expectation that determines how my future is

going to look and the role that I am to play whenever I am no longer a freshman here but rather a

graduate from the University of Pittsburgh starting a life. The expectation is the same for all of

us freshman in college, male and female. The expectation is similar for all high school and

middle school students. Further, the expectation is first established for all children when they

even come into the world, but what is the expectation?

My senior year of high school, I separated myself from those who I realized had not

made me a better person but rather an insecure and confined one. I had a best friend who knew

all my weaknesses, insecurities and the ways to take all the confidence I had for myself, away.

Yet, she was my best friend because I had grown up with her and me being a shy teenager was

clung to her side, until I wasn’t. This was growing up and developing independence for myself

and away from those who could control me, or so I thought. I got my first boyfriend freshman

year whom I had been friends with since elementary school. It was barely acknowledgeable

because it was two and a half months and I was how old, fourteen? High school continued and I

had made new friends through volleyball, mostly. Sophomore year I had gotten into my first

serious relationship of almost 2 years. That taught me lessons and for the first time, I had truly

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gotten a grasp on what it meant to gain independence and to have a life of my own with my own

choices. I also had two best girl friends that year and a whole group of friends that I really

became close with. During this time of my life, I was happy and really had no worry in the world

to what my future would look like because what was there to think about? The summer after

junior year got a little difficult. I got wrapped up in a phase of my life that thew me off my track.

I was the carefree person that everyone knew me to be, but I lost myself to say the least and

found that not only was I not a reliable source of secureness for myself, but neither were those I

spent my time with. We all know the people that bring you down, yet we try to find a place

within the group that we can fit but when we cannot, it consumes us. Well that’s what happened

with me. It bothered me so much trying to be a part of the others that the letdown was worse than

letting it go in the first place and just being myself. This was like mentioned before, my senior

year.

To turn to the plus side, it got better. It had to because college would start the following

school year and it was, in fact, my last year of high school. Well as promised, my year turned

around for the better and I found my place and myself. I became close with two of the best guy

friends on top of the other girl friends I had and let the rest fall into place as it was meant to. One

of them became someone very trustworthy and reliable to me whom I could be myself and find

comfort in knowing they were there while the other became someone I found myself in and

became the best version of myself possible. He became my boyfriend, but that time was

different—something that I had never experienced or been involved in before. All that had

happened just did and it wasn’t expected nor known how it would turn out, but before the idea is

formed that all was amazing and easy, it’s not over. The end of my senior year was all about

enjoying the present and not thinking about the upcoming phases that we, as well as those around

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me, were about to enter. That summer, my last one before college, they both left for United

States Marine Corps Recruit Training, aka boot camp, and never would I have thought I’d find

myself in that situation. I had an amazing summer full of adventure and exploring the world in

front of me I was about to be let out into, but yet almost each morning of the summer, I wrote.

He wasn’t quite my boyfriend at the time, but he became to be as we found security in writing to

each other through the letters. I had started college and was there for a couple weeks before they

both returned. I could go on and on and talk about what it meant for me now and then, but

bottom line is that was a month ago and by far the most exciting thing. But on top of that, it’s

now adjusting to college and really getting to enjoy the parts of it that allow me to determine

who I want to be and what my future is going to look like.

To say that we’re finally able to figure out who we want to be implies there is something

keeping us from obtaining that goal with ease. As a matter of suggested facts, there is. It is an

expectation that we are to meet—something that, unbeknownst, is determining the paths that we

find ourselves on. This leads us back to the question, what is the expectation? Well, there exists

in our society a clear path our lives are to follow and roles we are to fill that make our world go

round, beginning at birth. As a child, we learn social skills to help us survive in a world of

communication and interaction, then we grow up and learn standards and rules to implicate in

high school which set us up to obtain an education through college. It leads us to having a

supportive job, a marriage, and a family which wraps up to be life, then repeat. Those around us

grow up and do the same with a lot of other factors that enhance it, but it’s a cycle that keeps

economics, evolution and even stability for the next person running. That’s exactly what comes

out of the cycle—stability and knowledge to how the world works and preparation to assure that

our futures are successful.