Everybody tells you to follow your passion, but what if you don’t know what that is?
My best friend from high school has wanted to be an anesthesiologist since the age of eight. I spent four years’ worth of lunch breaks listening to her medical school plans, watching as she joined the relevant clubs and gained the experience needed to achieve her singular, defined goal. During rehearsals, my bandmates hid their phones underneath their music stands to research the universities with the best music programs, always asking if I planned to apply as well.
I, on the other hand, have never been a resolute thinker or a decisive planner; I stumbled into opportunities based on fortunate timing or momentary sparks of inspiration. All throughout high school, I had grappled with chronic indecision—joining DECA and public speaking competitions on the whims of my friends, yet skipping out on club study sessions to play the clarinet or design graphics for hours on end.
My indecision led to a lack of planning for my post-secondary endeavours. I first learned about the Ivey AEO program because its booth at the university fair had the most exciting free merchandise. My interests were constantly shifting to whatever subject I had excelled in the year prior, leaving me unsure of what I truly enjoyed. It was my fear of falling behind that ultimately drove me to apply to Western—the majority of my IB cohort aimed for medicine, engineering, or business programs, and my horrendous marks in chemistry ruled out the first two options. Having been introduced to business cases through DECA competitions, I found the program interesting enough to be worth the application fee.
When the acceptance letters rolled in in late March, the main reason I chose Ivey over any other program was because I was lost. Still torn between my interest in both business and the media arts, the natural option was to choose the program that enabled me to explore both. Despite happily accepting my offer, I couldn’t help but compare myself to my confident classmates who were already pursuing their dream jobs, leaving me frustrated that my own passion felt undefined.
This uncertainty motivated me to spend my first year exploring opportunities beyond my intended career plans to better understand where my interests lie. For example, I joined the stage
management team for a student-led play, even though I don’t plan to pursue a career in theatre. That experience taught me that, while I hated moving props half my body weight, I genuinely loved creative production and fast-paced logistical work. It was these random extracurricular pursuits, along with several personal creative projects and hundreds of rejection emails that shaped who I am as a learner. By exploring different opportunities and noting what I enjoyed from the experience, I was able to narrow my focus, recognize my strengths, and gain a deeper understanding of the kind of work that inspires and energizes me.
As I enter my second year, I feel a constant pressure to do more—to send out more internship applications, to join more clubs, and to squeeze every last ounce of my time dry. Now, more than ever, there is an urgency to be decisive in selecting your passions and resolute in your pursuit of them—the two traits that I have never been able to exemplify.
Yet, I’m grateful that my time at Western has brought me closer to uncovering what truly drives me, helping me gradually develop that decisiveness and resoluteness. I’ve learned that I thrive most when working on strategic, collaborative business presentations, and that nothing excites me more than working late into the night, three coffees deep, on a creative venture (I’m currently sipping on an affogato while writing this!). Discovering that my passion lies in storytelling—whether that be through short films or digital marketing campaigns—has helped me navigate a vast array of exciting opportunities to pursue the ones that align most with my loosely defined future goals. Through the Ivey community, I’ve also learned that personal passions aren’t as clear-cut and fixed as I once thought. Listening to the stories of inspiring peers who struggle with similar challenges has affirmed that the grey city of London truly was the right place to explore my curiosity and interests.
My “Journey Here” article offers only a glimpse into my story; one filled with twists and turns that I’m still rewriting every day. My acceptance email into Ivey wasn’t a perfect, conclusive victory, but rather the opening of a Pandora’s Box, filled with frightening uncertainties and crippling imposter syndrome. But from that same box spilled [], and genuine laughter through []. But from that same box spilled many exciting opportunities for mentorship and a community of supportive peers that motivate me to improve every single day.
Do I now know what I want to do with my life? No, of course not—but I’ve come a little closer with the help of Western’s community, and I’ve got four more years in London to figure it out.