Week 7 - Steve Jobs

So I absolutely loved this speech, I even copied it and sent it to my mom and boyfriend so they could read it as well.  Talk about inspirational for a college student, even one who isn't graduating.  I personally related to this a lot.  His words "you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life" are so applicable to life as a college student.  For me personally, it helped with a decision that I just made, saying no to UCLA and yes to UCSD.  This was hard!!! UCLA has the name, but I'm a Marine Bio major and therefore UCSD is a better school, plus I know that I will be happier there.  But there is still that question of having made the right decision, did I?  Who knows, but reading his words about trusting your gut and connecting the dots backwards makes me feel better about the decision that I made.  Even his words about loving the work that you choose is something that I found inspirational.  As a Bio major, money obviously is not a big part of the picture, so loving your work is essential.  Now I personally LOVE my major and everything about it.  The idea of spending the next 40+ years of my life doing research and studying marine life totally floats my boat.  Reading this speech made me realize how lucky I am to feel that way.  Sure, I won't be raking in millions of dollars, but I can honestly say that I don't think I'm going to dread going to work the way so many people do.  That in itself is far more important than the amount of zeros on your paycheck.  For someone who has gone through so much, Jobs has maintained a remarkably positive attitude about everything, something that I think is really impressive.  Although I don't want to drop out of school and take a calligraphy class now, I think that the lessons that can be learned through his actions are still important.  When I started college my mom told me to make sure to take one class a quarter that I wanted to take.  She said that this would help keep me going, even when other classes seemed overwhelming.  She was right, following this idea has kept me from throwing up my hands and quitting many times.  Jobs proposes a similar idea when he talks about calligraphy class and the value of dropping in on courses that he found interesting.  Marine Bio was one of my "enjoyable" classes, and look where that took me.