How has your upbringing shaped where you are today?

• “That is a broad question that not everyone fully understands the answer to. Like most people, I grew up learning from my parents. By watching them I learnt which habits I wanted to pick up and not pick up. I also had other mentors in my life whom I learned from such as my 6th-grade teacher, my junior high pastor from church, as well as a volunteer from my church who stands out the most.”

What is your definition of the grey area?

• “I would describe it more as…have you ever gone on a walk in a nature park? Trails are marked out, sometimes you go in and think, ‘I want to go and waterfall’ and end up on the wrong path and you never find the waterfall. I think people tend to know in general where they want to go. People sometimes go for walk and see where they end up. Sometimes it is based on if it looks more appealing every time they get to a fork in a word. Sometimes they want to take the hard path because it looks more interesting. It is more of figuring out what path you want to take to get to your destination. People know where they want to end up but they are not sure how they are going to get there. The destination is known, but the journey is unknown.”

Do you believe the grey area is temporary or permanent?

• “I would say for most people it is permanent because a lot of people have an idea of what they want to do but because they have never done it they do not know if it is what they actually expect is to be. For instance, people get into relationships and it does not turn out how they wanted it to and then they end up miserable because they had this expectation that was so far different than the reality that they were irreconcilable at the end. The same thing happens with people getting their dream jobs then end up miserable because their boss is a jerk.”
• “So, I think everyone is going to be in the grey area to some extent for most of his or her lives. To some extent, I feel dissatisfaction is a part of the human experience. Not saying that some people can never be happy with anything but that tomorrow they may believe they could have something better.”

Why did you decide to go to college?

• “It was the subconscious social pressure. Oh if you want success you should go to college. I also have grown up with the idea from my parents and from other people that I was too smart to not go to college. When picking my major I sat down and thought, what am I good at? If I figure out what I am good at then maybe I can figure out a job. Thinking to myself, I thought I am good at erasing doubt and I am good at math, therefore, I will be an engineer. What kind of engineer? Well, I’m crappy at chemicals, I do not like plastic, I do not understand electricity and I suck at computers. So, by default that leaves mechanical, so I will be a mechanical engineer. You kinda have to go to college for that so…to college I go.”

Post-Graduation, what were your feelings and thoughts?

• “I felt a bit of anxiety because I did not have a job lined up immediately after graduating. If you are talking about now looking back on college, I kinda miss it in a sense because of the camaraderie that exists when you are living and working with people 24/7. Focused more towards my senior design group because we had a senior design lab where we all worked on our senior projects but my group had a third of the class in it. So, we were all in there all of the time because our project was the biggest and most difficult. Being able to hang around 13 hours a day sometimes was nice and we all got really close. I do not talk to them all much anymore just because it is not convenient. They all went off and got married or traveled all over the country. But, I do miss the camaraderie that existed there although I have found that with other people now.”

Post-graduation, what is your view of college?

• “I see college as a great tool for people who are going into a field that can make enough money to pay for it. There are people that will be able to pay for it through scholarships and everything but if your job is in high enough demand that it can pay for your school soon after then college is a tool for you to get to that money. If you are planning on going into a field that is not high paying and is just enough for you to live on then I do not see why attending college would be necessary for such a lifestyle, because in my view college should pay for itself over time, if not immediately then soon after. But I had to go, I know people who majored in drama or music that paid for a 4-year degree at a $30000 college school each year. I do not see drama making as a wise investment.”