When I was just a little girl, I asked my mother ‘What will I be?’

Will I be pretty? Will I be rich? Here’s what she said to me:

Que sera sera. Whatever will be, will be.

The future is not ours to see.

What will be, will be.

My mom would sing this song to me as a lullaby whenever I had a difficult time falling asleep. I would drift off to sleep while fantasizing about my future. Oh, imagine the possibilities! Like Jennifer Garner on 13 Going on 30, I couldn’t wait for the day when I would finally become “thirty and flirty and thriving.”

Fast forward to college where all my hopes and dreams were crushed by reality. Just kidding. It wasn’t that dramatic. What happened was as I got to know myself more, I eventually realized that my motivations, values, and interests didn’t align with the career paths I was pursuing. Before I took the time to reflect on what matters to me and why, I was just a little sheep following the herd. Law school, foreign service, NGO advocacy, research, consulting, human resource management – I dabbled into all of them. By the end of my sophomore year, I had all these experiences without a direction. I had no idea what I wanted to do.

Of course, I was freaking out at this point. How could I not know what I want to be? Where was my game plan? As time went on, I couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that I was doing it all wrong. I felt like I was stepping back rather than moving forward each time I realized that a particular career wasn’t right for me. I was filled with regrets. Hindsight is indeed a bitch.

It then became an obsession for me to know what my future would look like. I turned to alumni, professors, and other mentors and asked them how they got into their careers. They all told me the same old story: Life is not a straight line. The twists and turns are all part of the journey. Yet, that wasn’t the answer that I wanted to hear. I wanted someone to draw out my life’s plan for me so I can be certain that I was going in the right direction. Magic 8 Ball, please just tell me what to do!

It wasn’t until the start of my senior year that I began to understand the joy of not knowing the future. Studying abroad played a major part in this realization since it taught me the value of taking risks – or as I like to call it – giant leaps of faith. Additionally, my experience at Koru pushed me to pick a direction even if I was only 51% sure of it. Then, act like your 51% is your 100% and dive into it as if you have been preparing for it since day one. The idea is that as long as you are moving towards a direction, you are making progress. If you realize later that you want to pursue something else, you can change paths. It’s simply a choice.

Because of this change in mentality, this year ended up becoming the best out of all my four years in college. Of course, there were still stressful times when I would resort to fearing the uncertainty of my future. But for the most part, I was completely seized by the present. This was in part due to the fact that I was constantly reminded as a senior that I would be experiencing a series of lasts – last football game, last fall/spring concert, last salsa night etc. I realized then that there will never be another time when I will be as ambitious, carefree, and most importantly, as confused as I was in college.

So here I am now trying to as much as possible enjoy my last five weeks of college. While I am extremely excited to work in Santa Barbara starting from July, it is bittersweet. Just when I learned how to fully appreciate being in college, it’s time to move on yet again to the next phase. The magic 8 ball has finally responded, but now I realize I didn’t need an answer at all. The destination didn’t matter; it was all about the enjoying the ride.

Now whenever I run into someone who is still in the process of job/internship searching, I just want to tell them that it’s going to be okay. It’s just a ride. And if anything, listen to the wisdom of our mothers and say: Que Sera Sera.