I Don’t Know by Emiko P. '25

I don’t know where I’m going to be a year from now.

That’s never really happened to me before. Preschool through college, it was kind of obvious that, duh, I’d be going to school next year. Maybe the only other time that would be comparable to what I’m feeling now would be when I was a senior in high school trying to figure out which college I would be going to. But still – at least I knew I’d be going to school somewhere.

As an undergrad senior who isn’t applying to grad school (yet) and has no concrete future plans hammered down, this feels different. The pretty much linear direction of my life⁠01 preschool –> elementary school –> middle school –> high school –> college has kind of exploded into a thousand different directions. Usually, I can think one year into the future, and there’s a fuzzy semblance of what my life will look like. 

Yet, right now as I sit and type this, I look a year into the future, and it’s a crystalline, pure nothing. Or maybe – better put – it’s a crystalline, pure anything.

A year from now, I could be:

• A mission operations engineer in Tokyo, flying a lunar lander to the moon.
• An English teacher back in Missouri, sharing my love of reading, creative writing, and mentoring with a bunch of high school students.
• A journalist for National Geographic, sailing along the coast of South Africa and witnessing the migration of dolphins, sharks, and whales.
• A sci-fi novelist, tucked away in a cabin somewhere in Michigan, where my days are filled with quiet days on a lake, inter-planetary battles, and cosmic magic.
• Part of the team trying to send humans back to the moon at NASA, imagining what the moon as the 8th continent of Earth would look like.
• Part of a community nonprofit, working to help energize and restore my home city of St. Louis.
• A world traveler, jumping from continent to continent with all my possessions fitting in a hiking backpack.
• A consultant in New York City, knowing the public transportation system like the back of my hand and rocking a blazer.

The possibilities are endless, and what’s truly crazy is that any of these alternate realities really could be me in a year. And as I continue this whole process of thinking about life post-grad, it’s unexpectedly led to a lot of internal reflection. 

I got lunch with a high school friend recently back in St. Louis, and she asked me something that really stuck with me: “Emi, if you stripped away every external expectation – your family, money, society, your sense of obligation – what would you be left with?” 

Without the expectation of earning a gargantuan amount of money, maintaining a stable and healthy work life balance, snagging a cool job to impress everyone – who am I, and what do I want? It only took a few moments of thinking about this before I felt an intense sort of clarity. 

I want to read books, creatively write, explore outer space, nurture the next generation, solve, create, imagine… Something in my body literally feels lighter when I dream of these things – as if a part of my soul has become sparkling and buoyant. I want to find that feeling on whatever of the one thousand roads ahead I take.

Something interesting that I’ve noticed is that I often write in other blogs about things that have already happened – classes and internships and soccer games – where everything has been tied up in a nice bow. Well, this blog is different. This is my official statement saying that I do not know yet.

I’m optimistic about this uncertainty, though, because with big changes and leaps of faith come unexpected and precious rewards. MIT is a perfect example. The night before my parents were going to move me in my freshman year, I sat on the brick steps of a restaurant on Newbury Street in Boston and loudly cried and sniveled for what felt like 30 minutes, because “I don’t know anyone here! I just want to go home.” Now, three years later, a part of me can’t bear to leave. 

It’s so funny how that works – when something you fear turns into something you can’t imagine you ever lived without. I’m kind of writing this as a reminder to myself and any others out there that even though the future is scary, once we venture into the unknown, what we find there may not be so scary after all.

This all being said, one year is a long time from now. For now, with two more semesters left, I’m looking forward to learning as much as I can about everything from satellites to Japanese literature to product design; having fun playing a sport where we kick an inflated synthetic leather ball around a field for 90 minutes; promising my roommates we will go to sleep early;⁠02 What do you mean it’s midnight??! We were talking about the promise land for <i>that long</i>?!?  and trying to set a record with my friends for most soup dumplings consumed at Dumpling House ever!