To Become A Renaissance Man

Noun: 1) a cultured man of the Renaissance who was knowledgeable, educated, or proficient in a number of fields. 2) a present-day man who has acquired profound knowledge or proficiency in more than one field.

I had a hard time picking a major because so many things held interest for me. That is still true, so I'm trying to fit a diversity of classes in to the remaining time I have left. It felt like I have two options with my time in life: specialize and become proficient in just one thing, or diversify my skills and settle for across-the-board mediocrity. Neither option sounds especially appealing, because I would like to be good at a lot of things. But there just doesn't seem to be enough time in college to take such a breadth and depth of classes.

But then I had a new thought. Who says I have to be done engaging myself and learning new things when I get my collegiate degree? That should be obvious, but I think there's an underlying tendency to give ourselves unnecessary deadlines and restrictions, especially on our personal growth. I've still got plenty opportunity to become a "renaissance woman," because I've got the rest of my life to work on learning and "becoming." I think that often when we're young, we forget about the "big picture," that someday we'll be old(er), and that we'll grow and change in ways that we can't imagine right now. So I can still hold to this desire of mine and turn it into a goal. One of the great things about growing up and fulfilling dreams is that we then get to come up with new ones :)