Farm Major

Today over lunch, I mentioned to Daddy that one of my friends is constructing her own major at college. “That’s the trend nowadays,” he replied, and I said defensively, “Well, she wants to be a medical illustrator. Nobody offers a major for that.” He hastened to assure me that he didn’t mean to be “catty”; he was just stating a fact. People construct their own majors now. It’s a Thing.

He wasn’t thrilled when I announced that I didn’t want to go to college. Even less thrilled when I announced I wasn’t going to get my Associate’s degree in entrepreneurship, which was Plan B. Instead, I said, I was going to be a farmer. Don’t need a degree for that. I simply couldn’t imagine sitting through hours of lectures in a classroom, researching and writing dozens of papers, slogging through countless projects. The whole idea of structured schooling, where the structure was determined by somebody else, made my homeschooled soul crawl. Besides, why should I pay all that money and mire myself in a swamp of debt when no college teaches what I really wanted to learn? 

For me, the cons of college outweigh the pros. I'm not saying college is bad; I'm just saying it's not for me. And maybe it's not for a lot of other people too–they just haven't realized it yet. They plod along the path they're expected to follow, zipped into an airless box, and they don't even know they're trapped. 

I’m passing on a traditional college education, but that doesn’t mean I’m passing on education. I’ll keep learning in my own way, in my own time. In a little over a month I’m going to start a 10-month journey of volunteering on farms around the country in exchange for room and board. The program I'm doing this with is called WWOOF: World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms. I hope to learn about goats, chickens, bees, ducks, permaculture, orchards, and agroforestry. I’m ready to work my hands into the dirt, get a crust of black under each fingernail, feel like I’m finally doing something that needs to be done. 

I’m kind of making my own major. A farm major. It’s trendy. But more than that, it feels right to me.