Braden Trimmer

Dr. Hellen Kailiti

English Composition I

Advancing towards my Future Dream

Around 20-50% of American college students apply with an undecided major, and as

high as 75% decide to change their major during their time in college (Sun, 2022), which are

numbers that shocked me the first time I read them. For the longest time, whenever anyone has

asked me “What do you want to do when you grow up?” my answer has always been “I have no

idea.” I was dreading going to college with an undecided major and being directionless, wasting

money taking classes I wasn’t interested in, and becoming a financial burden on my family. But

after the best high school teacher I have ever had the privilege of meeting introduced me to

physics, I fell in love with the field. Although it had a late start due to a number of factors, my

journey towards my future dream of becoming a physicist began with this class, AP Physics, and

continued with my efforts to be accepted into the University of Washington as a physics major.

In the early years of my educational journey, although I did have passions, I never saw

them as something that could become a legitimate career. I was a fan of playing video games, but

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to pursue game development as a career due to how negative my

experiences with coding had been. I loved my band class in elementary and middle school, but

saw it as more of a hobby and a way to find community than a career to pursue. Other interests—

both academic and otherwise—I had in elementary and middle school included drawing, math,

and trading card games. Despite my numerous interests going into high school, I still didn’t have

one that felt like it was truly a part of who I was and that I wanted to keep doing for the rest of

my life. My outlook on finding a prospective career was also influenced by my sister, who had

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wanted to be an elementary school teacher for as long as I can remember. In contrast to her, I felt

like I was behind on life because I didn’t have my heart set on a career stepping into the doors of

my high school for the first time. But thanks to a class in my Junior year, this was about to

change.

My journey towards my dream of becoming a physicist began with one class—AP

Physics I. My high school requires three lab science classes to graduate, and encourages one

each of biology, chemistry, and physics. Since AP classes are not available to freshmen and

sophomores (with the exception of AP World History in 10th grade), only Honors Biology and

Chemistry were available to me in my first two years of high school. However, with junior year

coming around came with it the opening of the AP floodgates, and AP lab science classes were

one of the many AP courses offered. Since I had already taken my required biology and

chemistry courses, I picked AP Physics as my last lab science class, not thinking much of it—

something along the lines of ‘Well, I need one last lab science credit and I’ve already taken Bio

and Chem, taking Physics too would make me well rounded. Colleges would like to see me

taking rigorous courses, so I’ll take the AP option.’ Taking AP Physics with friends both old and

new, struggling through weekly tests together, and working our hardest to understand the content

ended up opening my eyes to just how rewarding studying physics could be. I thoroughly

enjoyed almost every part of the class, even when it was stressful; I barely escaped the first

semester with a 93%, the minimum to get an A and maintain the 4.0 GPA that had been

relatively easy to keep so far. Despite all of this, I now knew which passion of mine I was

willing to pursue as a career, and my journey towards my future dream began.

In the present day, I am working towards my future dream of becoming a physicist by

working on my application to the University of Washington. Since my sister went all the way to

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Vermont to attend college, she had to pay out-of-state tuition, which strained my family’s

financial resources a fair amount. Now that I am planning to go to college, especially for a

discipline which will take more than four years of education (as a master’s or doctorate is often

required to obtain a good physics position), my options have been narrowed to mostly in-state

schools. Luckily, after visiting a number of schools in Washington, including Western

Washington University, Washington State University, and the University of Washington, as well

as the physics departments of all three schools, I fell in love with UW. The road to being

accepted into the university, however, has not been an easy one. Over the summer before senior

year, I attended a week-long college essay workshop, talked to friends and family members to

gather information, drafted, scrapped, and re-drafted essays, worked on the never-ending

sections of the common application, and more. Right now, about a month before the application

deadline, I am putting my finishing touches on the common application and reaching out to

family members to help me improve my essays—as UW requires two.

Despite the delayed start my journey towards my future dream had as a result of my late

discovery of my love for physics, I am now on the path towards it with my application to the

University of Washington. After years of feeling like none of my passions could become careers,

or not feeling like the careers associated with any of my passions were right for me, AP Physics

came along to save me. I was introduced to the wonderful world of physics, and learned about

the fundamental rules of the universe on the scales of atoms to galaxies. Now that my eyes have

been opened, I am close to my application to the University of Washington to continue

advancing towards my future dream of becoming a physicist—wherever it may take me.

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 Works Cited

Sun, Kim-Ling. “What Does It Mean to Be Undeclared? | BestColleges.”

Www.bestcolleges.com, Red Ventures, 23 Aug. 2022, www.bestcolleges.com/blog/what-

does-undeclared-mean/. Accessed 12 Oct. 2024.