For much of my life, I have not really known exactly what it is I wanted to study while in college. I figured that I would just figure it out as time progressed and that this epiphany of “I’m going to be a psychologist,” would occur. By the time I was a senior, I had just enough “ideas” and “aspirations” to count on one hand. Since I had grown up in a fairly impoverished family, I was reminded every day that I would have to support myself through school. As an 18 year old, I had grown up very sheltered. What I mean by this is that I would go to school, swim for our swim team, do homework, and help with chores around the house. Not once was I allowed to have a friend over to visit unless it had been planned 2 days in advance to allow for a reasonable decision to be made. Living like this was beneficial in many aspects, I was very responsible, but on the other side of things I was still a scared little lamb who had some serious growing up to do. Now I was going to have to move out, buy a car (which I would have to wait on because I still needed to get my license), rent an apartment close to a community college, and pay by pocket every course that I would take for my “undecided” degree. Realizing that these responsibilities were very much over my head at the time, I made a big decision to joint the military. The branch that I chose to enlist with was the United States Air Force.  It was a well known fact that the Air Force would be able to shelter, feed, and provide me clothing. In a sense, it was the best of situations for an individual as myself. The only problem that I had noticed was occuring as I served my enlistment, was that there really was not “easy” way to obtain a “civillian” degree. I found that it would be especially difficult to fit in random classes for an “undecided” degree. It was then that knew it was time to decide on an area of interest. My coworkers, who are very militant, business oriented individuals found my possible elected choices to be pointless and directionless. Another lesson I learned is that you should probably really consider who you tell you deepest darkest secrets to. Being still pretty naive, it took constant ridicule from others to teach me this lesson. I know now. Their “suggestions” were of very little interest to me, many of which just did not mesh well with my creativity and personality. After some time, I began to realize that the key to sucess is not what others think of you or how sucessful they judge you will be, it is how you perceive yourself and how adamently you pursue your own interests. With this in mind, I am currently working on achieving my degree in East Asian Studies, a degree that I would have never been able to strive for if it wasn’t for working to achieve what “I feel is right.”