The University Education Puzzle :: Personal Narrative, Autobiographical Essay

The University Education Puzzle My four years of education at Bemidji State University have been comparable to a huge jigsaw puzzle. When I first began, I needed to find my interest, my field of study. I was shopping for the picture puzzle of my preference. I found that there was no particular field that I was interested in so I just grabbed at something. I bought my puzzle without really caring what the picture would be of. I consulted my catalog and found that you could determine what courses to take without wasting valuable time, by determining which ones were required for the two fields most suitable to me. I chose limiting myself to English and Psychology. I now had an idea of what my puzzle would end up looking like. I compared the required curriculum for both majors and took classes needed for both majors, as well as liberal education classes. I was building the framework for my puzzle by grabbing the outside pieces first. I began to piece it together by what I knew would benefit me the most. In building thi s puzzle, I found that some classes would link with one piece, but would be more difficult to pair with another in order to make this border. Psychology was not working out beyond the intro courses to I stuck to classes offered for liberal education and English. It took my two and a half years to find out what my puzzle would really look like. I had stuck with English classes, mainly out of personal interest, and at that point I was nearly done with the liberal education requirements. My puzzleà ­s border was complete and there were even a few layers building unto it. So after consulting with my catalog frequently, much like a puzzleà ­s box with the complete picture illustrated upon it, I decided to go for filling in the rest of the picture. I worked very hard at eliminating classes down to when they would be offered and if I would have fulfilled any prerequisites or class level guidelines prior to taking it. In other words, I was separating the sky pieces from the landscape ones to determine whereabouts each piece would need to be placed in order to accomplish the puzzle. I found that the recommended guidelines suggested having many courses, most of which I had not yet taken, finished at the end of a freshmen and sophomore level.