When I first heard about senior career day, I will admit it, I groaned. The stolen lunch, the pointlessness, career day was just a waste of time.

I was incensed that we were being made to learn about careers when most of us were already applying to colleges; careers are a thing of the distant future.

Furthermore, the survey we took deciding which career we were learning about did not even have what I am interested in – International Relations – as a choice.

Needless to say, when I stomped into the media center to listen to Rose Hayden-Smith, I was a little aggravated. Then she started talking, and I changed my mind.

Hayden-Smith is director of University of California’s Cooperative Extension and Master Garden Coordinator, UC Division of Agricultural and Natural Resources. As UC ANR, she says she “yields new ideas, care for health and well-being, help those who feed and clothe (farmers), nurture the future and serve the land and its people.”

Personally, I am not interested in agriculture, but I still found her lecture to be interesting. Other than her job, she talked about her education, specifically her collegiate education.

She talked about how nonlinear her education was, and encouraged us to do what we like, what we find interesting. I loved that.

As someone whose parents try to push them in the direction of the careers that make the most money, it is refreshing to hear someone tell me to do what I like, even if it seems impractical to them. That it is okay to pursue topics that do not seem to have real world applications.

I do not have to be a lawyer, banker, doctor, engineer, etc., to be happy.

It seemed to me that she was talking about the importance of the journey versus the destination, a cliché but a truth. That college is about learning, about a subject, about yourself, and we should not rush through our education in the pursuit of a job.

We should not limit ourselves to a single choice, because if we keep our minds open, we could end up somewhere even better than we would have planned.

Photo illustration: Dani Draper shares how Career Day gave her a new view on college and jobs. Photo illustration by Lauren Parrino of The Foothill Dragon Press.