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Sonic restaurant chain potentially the latest to be hit by a hack

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College Life: Now is the time to change for the better

<p>It still hasn&#8217;t hit me.</p><p>Come May, for the first time since I was 4 years old, I won&#8217;t be buying school supplies. I won&#8217;t be doing any required summer reading. I won&#8217;t choose my schedule. I won&#8217;t have homework.</p><p>It also hasn&#8217;t fully hit me that this is when the real planning should start.</p><p>For someone like me, who always knew I wanted to go to college, the choice of my path in life was obvious when I graduated from high school.</p><p>I didn&#8217;t have to worry about whether I wanted to take a year off, whether I wanted to go to technical school, whether I wanted to enter the workforce, or whether I wanted to get my gen-eds done at a community college &#8212; I knew my next step was at a university.</p><p>That part was easy for me, if you don&#8217;t factor in that I had changed my major three times by my sophomore year, and that I spent a nervous week before the start of my freshman year trying to convince myself not to go.</p><p>A lot of people mistakenly think the beginning of one&#8217;s undergraduate studies is the most important step in their career. That&#8217;s when you pick your major, but, usually, you know almost nothing about what an actual career in the field is like.</p><p>Do you think anyone actually expects an 18-year-old to have it all figured out?</p><p>I attend Wilkes University, and my second faculty adviser &#8212; from my 1 1/2 semesters as a psychology major &#8212; told me the focus of my undergraduate studies wouldn&#8217;t make a huge difference anyway.</p><p>That really stuck with me.</p><p>That doesn&#8217;t mean your whole undergraduate career is pointless, and it doesn&#8217;t mean you can graduate with an English degree and expect to be a chemist. What it does mean is that your life after college is more flexible than you might think.</p><p>That sounded fantastic two years ago when I couldn&#8217;t make up my mind about what to study, but now it&#8217;s a little overwhelming, because I&#8217;m heading toward that point of flexibility, and my options seem endless.</p><p>I also feel like everyone I know already has a five-year plan.</p><p>Heck, I don&#8217;t have a one-year plan. Is &#8220;going with the flow&#8221; really the best way to use my bachelor&#8217;s degree?</p><p>I will be 21 years old when I graduate. How much free time should I let myself enjoy before I get a 9-to-5?</p><p>I really wish I had an answer, but here&#8217;s what I do know at this point:</p><p>This is where I become my truest self, regardless of what my choice is. This is where I figure out what makes me happy, what makes me my best me.</p><p>It is a privilege to have that choice, and it is a privilege to have dreams.</p><style>
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<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Toni Ann Pennello</p><p>tpennello@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Toni Ann Pennello is a Wilkes University senior who works in the Times Leader newsroom.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

College Life: Choices made after college are more important than major