When I first started college, I was an art major. I was frequently told that what subject my degree was in was less important than the fact that I had a degree. Besides, most people ended up in different fields than what they studied. Well, if it didn't matter what my area my studies focused on, why not go for something I enjoy and am reasonably talented in? Mind you, the economy was still going strong at this point, my high school counselor was next to useless, and I was determined to succeed after being repeatedly told that "art isn't a real career". So I signed up for a Bachelor of Fine Arts program with an emphasis in drawing and painting.
My freshman year was a real eye-opener. Despite what you may have heard, art is not an easy subject. Unlike math, there are no right or wrong answers. An evaluation of a painting can hinge on your professor's taste and whether or not you copy his/her style. While I had a couple of amazing teachers from whom I learned a great deal, I was also under a lot of stress.
See, there are different types of energy within a person. There's physical energy, what you need to go out on a long run or stay awake in class. Mental energy allows one to deal with critical thinking and prevents one from feeling brain-dead. Finally, there is creative energy, which is what allows a person to write a story or create a piece of art. While I wish I had unlimited amounts of all forms of energy, I do not. What happened during my freshman year is that all of my creative energy was being funneled into my classwork, leaving me nothing to use on my personal art.
Art keeps me sane. I don't do it because I harbor dreams of being a famous artist. I do it because I need some sort of outlet for the crap that goes on in my head. If this outlet does not exist, I end up going insane.
This is exactly what happened. I got overloaded and had a major nervous breakdown.
I dropped out of school to work full-time while I made up my mind what I was going to do with my life. I started going back to school part-time after a year or so, although I hadn't committed myself to a major. I dabbled around with animation and the liberal arts, but nothing really seemed to fit.
A couple of years ago, I heard about a Radiology program at the local community college. (Yes, a community college. Stop laughing, it's cheap enough that I can go to school without having to take out student loans, and I hate having debts hanging over my head.) It's a two-year program that trains a person to take radiographs, more commonly known as X-Rays. Actually, there's more to it than that, but the bulk of the work you do is related to zapping people with radiation to take pictures of their bones.
So why Radiology? Well, first and foremost, I will move back to California. However, the cost of living out there is rather high, and it doesn't look as if it will be going down anytime in the near future. I need a job that I can support myself on, and Radiology pays well. (In west Michigan right now, a student right out of school starts off at about $18-an-hour plus full benefits.)
Second, I don't have to worry about my job being shipped over seas. What are they going to do, fly a patient to India to have a chest X-Ray performed and fly them back here? And with more and more Baby Boomers needing additional medical assistance as they age, the demand for people in the medical field will only increase. If I recall correctly, hospitals nationwide were not able to 15% of the positions they needed in Radiology. This means that I can essentially go anywhere in the country and find a well-paying job.
Third, I think that X-Ray images are, for lack of better description, really spiffy. I'm a geek, so the combination of medical and scientific aspects of the job greatly intrigue me. I can't wait for my Pathology class next year. I'm always studying the chest radiographs and wondering what the specks and clouding in the lungs means.
Finally, while I was fiddling around and going to school part-time, the economy crashed. Simply having a college degree is no longer enough to help one get a job. And while having a degree in a subject I love, be it art or anthropology, would be nice, if I'm going to spend thousands of dollars on an education, I want to get my money's worth out of it. I don't need to go to school to learn; I can do well enough with books and the occasional night class. In fact, I often do better, because I can focus on the areas that truly interest me, and do not have the added stress of tests and grades.
However, simply discovering what I wanted to do was not enough. The program only allows 32 students in each year, so there is a waiting list. This didn't bother me at first, because it allowed me to get some of the non-Radiology classes (such as Anatomy & Physiology and Medical Terminology) out of the way first. After two years and no word as to when I would be accepted, though, I started to get tetchy. I need to get out of Michigan, the sooner the better. I was looking into other schools to see if they could get me in sooner, and, when all else seemed to be failing, I started to consider moving out to California first and finishing the program out there.
Someone Up There apparently doesn't hate me, though. This past summer, I got a phone call from the aforementioned community college. There had been a couple of last minute drops from the program, my name was next on the list, and would I like to start this autumn?
Hell, YES, I would.
It took a bit of scrambling to get things arranged - school started in only a week - but here I am.
First semester was hectic. I was warned ahead of time that everyone feels overwhelmed at first. They told me that most people worry that they made the wrong decision; that this really isn't for them. They were right. Once again, I was quietly panicking.
With the onset of second semester, however, my clinicals started. For two days a week, instead of going to school for class, the students head out to one of six local hospitals as part of our curriculum. I tend to be a very hands-on type of person, and on-the-job training has always been a good way for me to learn. Thus, I've found that now that I'm out there actually taking X-Rays, everything is starting to click. Moreover, I've discovered that I like Radiology more than I anticipated. I enjoy the hospital atmosphere. I enjoy the fact that you cannot predict what will happen each day, or what you will see. Parts of the job, such as triple-checking the label on a bottle before you inject the contents into someone, fit in perfectly with my obsessive-compulsive personality.
And if I ever get bored with radiographs, this education will provide me with a foundation that can branch off into ultrasound, MRI, CT, Nuclear Medicine, and more. I'm already considering moving on into ECHO cardiography, but not for a while.
I feel a bit behind, though. Most of the people I went to high school with have already graduated from college. Still, I've finally got an achievable goal, and my life is on track. It's taking me a bit longer to get out west than I had hoped, but I feel better knowing that when I do move, I'll be able to support myself comfortably.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
piasharn
