I think part of my hardship in deciding what I want sometimes is overshadowed by all of the things I don’t want out of that particular situation. Take for example a big question. What do I want to do after May? Well great question, because you see I know that I don’t want to be designing home s for people that I feel could rather be giving that money to someone who either a)has no home or b)has a home which does not pass any codes. Well we can knock out Residential design can’t we (or can we)? Then we can take the fact that I don’t want to be designing office spaces for big business firms, because where is the fun in that? We are then left without two of the main interior design focuses and left with hospitality and educational design. Yes, I do love both of these, but is there a place that does one of those and NOT the other which I do not want to do. Then we have to take into account my passion to help those less fortunate, but combine it with the fact that I will be one the “less fortunate” if come May I am jobless and have no place to live. Here lays the problem to be solved. Find something I love that, at least for a little while, can get me money to live.
Another thing that I think will help me with these decisions is educating myself. Here I sit with only one more semester at Meredith to go, and I can think of lots of classes I would have loved to take. I think that by educating myself in different subject areas I can learn what I like, what I hate, and then what I may not like as much but be good at. If I had known this freshman year I may have had a better outlook in classes and may have even done better. There is now no time to wonder about the “what ifs,” but there is time to appreciate each and every moment I have to learn in the next 6 months. I have the chance to talk to some people about housing issues in Raleigh and what people are doing to live in community with one another. I think there are barriers which will take more than research and a project to fix in neighborhoods, and across our city. I think that there is a solution to solving major problems of poor housing, poor health, and poor education in our low income neighborhoods, and that is something I would like to be a part of. What are the “other” neighborhoods doing that these low income neighborhoods aren’t, and if it isn’t being done because they don’t have the money how can they revise a similar plan to their area. Not only are their problems in low income neighborhoods, there are problems in rich suburban neighborhoods too, or at least I believe so. These neighborhoods are often under exposed to issues in the community and people decide to avoid problems rather than solve them.
The next question would be how I can address my concerns to those issues with my knowledge and my degree. That is the question I hope to find the answer to through internships this semester.
