How to respond to people who ask what you want to be when you grow up

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” is, to most, a well-known and often encountered question. Some might even consider it along the lines of lighthearted interrogation especially if coming from someone who has—get this—expectations as to what one might be. I’ve noticed that people of all ages like to ask this question for different reasons. Some are genuinely curious as to where you’d like to go, some are looking for insight as to what path they should take, and some people just want to pin you in a corner and enlighten you with what they think you should do. A short question, an infinite amount of possibilities.

I’ve run into this question so often you’d think it was my own shadow. Initially I felt hassled by this question because it felt as if I couldn’t clearly explain my life aspirations. Later, I observed that I had been misled by the notion I had to know exactly what my next move was at every moment in life. At some point after all of that I realized, wait a minute, even if I do know what I want to be when I grow up, how will the person asking me know whether or not I actually become it? Life has its way of going about, so if I can hardly be certain how can they? And that’s when the fun began.

Since that moment of epiphany, I’ve come up with a list of things I’d like to be when I grow up:

• Secret spy (who has the cool lipstick that zaps people)
• Neuroscientist (that studies brain waves and compares them to ocean waves)
• Author (of the first waterproof cookbook)
• Poet (pioneer of Adventure Poetry, where you leave poems scattered and an initial poem with clues to their locations, so people have to search for them treasure hunt style)
• Beekeeper (the regular kind)
• Olympian (when they decide to put in regular people for comparison)
• UFC fighter (inspired by Ronda Rousey)
• Performance Artist (it fit in with the mime phase)

I’d like to clarify that all of the responses listed above are genuine answers I have given at some point in time and continue to give with varying degrees of seriousness. 

“What do you want to be when you grow up” gets asked at any and all stages of life. And though it used to be a question that stressed me out or brought panic, my handy list of Possible Future Careers never fails to astound, baffle, and, in the rare case, impress. What I’ve learned from my personal experience with this is that a little humor goes a long way and a lot of humor means you’ll get phone calls from concerned relatives and humored cousins — the latter being worth the trouble.

Mind of a Freshman is an Opinion column written by a current first-year Stevens student to discuss life experiences during their time at Stevens, and other related subject matter.