I am not talking about ignorance here, I am talking about the mindset you get when you limit your thoughts to a distance or a radius.

Let me explain: I had to run up to the library the other day and as I was preparing to leave I found myself wondering if there was anything else that I needed to drop off “up there” – to be efficient? to be lazy? – I’m not sure. Then I realized as I was walking up there that, for some reason, I was thinking of this trip as a trek; as if walking to the library was so far away (from the CDC!) that I had to make sure I had every possible thing I needed because it was too far to go back. That’s when I had this thought – how it was funny how things seem so far away in small towns. It’s like the smaller the town the greater the distance of 1 mile seems, or a 1/2 mile, or a walk up to the library.

When I lived in New York (City – because I have lived in other parts of the State) a walk to the subway a mile away was what you did. Once you got out of the subway the 2 avenue and 10 street walk to work was simply how you got to work.  Boom: I just walked 1.75 miles to get to work. Not to mention running out to get coffee – not from the closest Starbucks but to the coffee shop I liked a whole other avenue (read 2 blocks) away. Not to mention running out to get lunch or shopping instead of getting lunch or reversing my trip back home. You get my drift? When you have the ability to walk for miles and miles then walking 1 doesn’t seem like a lot. But when you shrink your walk-able distance to say – what’s Market Street 1 mile? – 1 mile, then walking 1/2 a mile seems like a lot.

I know a lot of people (I’m not talking about just students) on campus are guilty for driving distances that they could easily have walked and I often hear people explain that it’s just too far from this part of campus to that part of campus to walk. But I press them, because it generally is a walk-able distance.  The CDC to the bookstore is a 6 minute walk. 6 minutes. It’s just that distance in terms of our geography of how “big” Lewisburg is seems like it is far.

Am I making any sense here? If you’ve followed this far you are probably wondering why I’m going on about this on a career blog, well it’s because you can apply the same [thought? – theory? – tangent?] to careers.

If you limit your thinking then the distance you can travel is not as great as if you keep an open mind. Not every Philosophy major becomes  a professor and not every Sociology major because a social worker. If you think that because you are Engineer you can only ever work for an engineering firm you will be cutting off a lot of possibilities. If you think because you are an Economics major your only option is to go into finance you wouldn’t be wrong per se but you would definitely be limiting your options. Now it is true the last two I picked are rather direct majors but even so I can give you examples of Bucknell Alumni that have followed a different path:

Examples of what some Econ Majors are doing: Ad Sales, Math Teacher, Geologist!, Field Hockey Coach, Food and Drink Analyst

Examples of what some Engineering Majors are doing: Investment Banking Analyst, Patent Examiner, Superintendent, Ski Coach, Legal Counsel

P.S. I’m getting all this info from our website … here to be exact

It is NOT easy to know what possibilities lay ahead or what all your options out there are, no one does!

But it’s not about knowing exactly, it is about keeping your mind open to the possibilities that may come up; making your mind 5 square miles instead of 1 square mile.

Am I losing you here? Let’s use another city example: say you were walking to a known sandwich shop. It’s 4 blocks away and you know you love their sandwiches. But on the way you make a wrong turn because you were texting and not paying attention. You end up one block over but in front of a this place serving  lunch and it looks so good – so you go in and try it! There you go – happenstance discoveries can happen with more than just deli’s in NYC (we all know they are a dime a dozen!).

Of course the CDC can help – we can help you explore and discover, we can talk to you, help you connect with Alumni, research using the Vault, I could go on. But don’t be afraid to step away from that computer and meet with us. Our counselors have interacted with thousands of Alumni and they have this great ability of remembering that so-and-so works at NBC or started their own company. The collective knowledge among them cannot be stored in any spreadsheet, though we may try, so really meeting with us is an awesome idea.

And don’t let the name of this resource “What Can I Do With That Major,” fool you into thinking it’s only useful for declaring a major. It also gives areas/industries, employers, and strategies.

So long story short – keep an open mind, let  happenstance happen, start walking more, and while you are on a stroll, stop in the CDC!