JACK OF ALL TRADES, MASTER OF… WHAT EXACTLY?

There is a very high chance that my answer depends on what I've been thinking about that week.

Ask me on Monday and I might tell you I want to go into medicine, researching cancer treatments and finding better ways to help people.

Ask me on Tuesday and I might say:

"Actually, biomedical engineering sounds really interesting."

Wednesday?

Chemical engineering.

Thursday?

Computer science.

Friday?

Data science.

And if you catch me at exactly the right moment, I might start talking about aerospace engineering and space exploration.

Then there is economics.

Finance.

Business.

Artificial intelligence.

Music.

At this point, I sometimes wonder if I have a career path or just a collection of tabs permanently open in my brain.

The funny thing is that these aren't interests I picked because they sound impressive.

I genuinely find them fascinating.

Science has always pulled me in, especially questions about how things work and how knowledge can be turned into something useful.

That's part of what made medicine and cancer research so interesting to me.

Then I discovered engineering and started thinking about how science can be used to actually build solutions.

Biomedical engineering made sense.

Chemical engineering made sense.

And then aerospace engineering entered the conversation because apparently my brain decided that solving problems on Earth wasn't enough.

Why not add space to the list?

Technology opened another door.

I started learning Python, exploring machine learning and data science, taking courses in web development and prompt engineering, and working on programming projects.

And I actually enjoy the process of figuring things out.

There's something satisfying about starting with absolutely no idea what you're doing and eventually reaching that:

"Ohhh, I get it now" moment.

But then, just when I think I've settled into technology, my brain wanders somewhere completely different.

Economics.

Finance.

Business.

I start thinking about how money moves, how businesses operate, how decisions affect markets, how people make financial choices and how all these systems connect.

Then music comes knocking.

I sing.

I think about building a music career.

I explore creative projects and content creation.

Then languages enter the room.

French.

German.

And suddenly I'm wondering why I haven't become fluent already.

This is my brain on a normal Tuesday.

And honestly?

I enjoy it.

I love being curious.

I love discovering something and thinking:

"Wait, I want to know more about this."

But there is one major problem with being interested in many things.

Choosing.

Because eventually, somebody asks:

"So what are you going to study?"

And I'm standing there mentally scrolling through my entire list.

"Well..."

How do you choose one career when you can genuinely imagine yourself doing several?

That's what makes it difficult for me.

It's not that I have no idea what I want.

It's that I can see myself enjoying different possibilities.

I can imagine myself in a laboratory.

I can imagine myself writing code.

I can imagine myself working with data.

I can imagine myself designing something in engineering.

I can imagine myself studying economic systems or working in finance.

I can imagine myself building a business.

I can imagine myself working in aerospace.

And, in a completely different way, I can imagine myself making music.

The thought that makes it even harder is that I don't necessarily look at these fields and think:

"I can't do that."

My first thought is usually:

"I could learn this."

And that might be both my greatest strength and my biggest problem.

Because when you believe you can learn almost anything you genuinely commit yourself to, how do you decide what deserves your years?

For a while, I thought something was wrong with me.

I wondered if I was indecisive.

If I was easily distracted.

If I was simply incapable of committing to one thing.

And then I realized that maybe there is a difference between not knowing what you want and wanting many things.

Those are not the same problem.

Some people discover one passion and know almost immediately that that's the road they want to take.

And honestly, I admire them.

But I don't think everyone works that way.

Some of us are explorers.

We want to understand things.

We want to try.

We want to ask questions.

We want to move from one subject to another and see what we find.

The problem is that our society often makes exploration feel like a problem that needs to be solved.

"Choose a career."

"Pick a major."

"Decide what you want to do with your life."

And somehow we're expected to make these decisions while we're still figuring out who we are.

I've started wondering if maybe we put too much pressure on young people to have a five-year plan when some of us are still discovering what we like.

But there is also something I have to be honest about.

Being curious about everything doesn't mean I should pursue everything.

At some point, curiosity has to meet commitment.

You can explore ten things, but you can't necessarily dedicate equal amounts of time to all ten.

So perhaps the goal isn't to kill my curiosity.

Perhaps it's to learn how to direct it.

Explore widely.

Then, when something keeps pulling me back, go deeper.

Maybe I don't need to decide that everything I love must become my career.

Some interests can remain hobbies.

Some can become skills.

Some can become side projects.

Some might eventually become a profession.

And some might simply lead me to another interesting question.

Maybe that's okay.

I don't know exactly where all of this curiosity will take me.

I don't know whether I'll eventually become a specialist in one field or build a career that combines several.

I just know that I don't want to spend my life feeling guilty for being interested in many things.

Because maybe being a jack of all trades isn't necessarily about being a master of none.

Maybe it's about having enough curiosity to keep learning until you discover where you want to go deep.

And perhaps one day, I'll look back at this confusing collection of interests and realize that they weren't as random as they seemed.

Maybe medicine taught me about people.

Engineering taught me about creating solutions.

Technology taught me about problem-solving.

Economics and finance taught me about systems and decisions.

Music taught me about expression.

Languages taught me about communication.

Maybe all these different roads are quietly building the same person.

Me.

So for now, I'm still that girl with too many tabs open.

Medicine.

Biomedical engineering.

Chemical engineering.

Computer science.

Data science.

Aerospace engineering.

Economics.

Finance.

Business.

Artificial intelligence.

Music.

And who knows what I'll add next?

Maybe that's the fun part.

Because perhaps I don't need to have the whole map yet.

Maybe I just need to keep exploring until I find a road worth travelling further.

So, what about you?👀

Are you the "I've known what I want to be since I was five" kind of person?

Or are you like me, constantly discovering a new field and wondering if this might finally be the one?

Maybe we're not lost.

Maybe we're just exploring.

And maybe the real question isn't:

"How do I choose one thing?"

Maybe it's:

"How do I build a life that has room for all the things that make me curious?"

El Mitochondria's Korner