#2; The future's bright, the future's multicoloured...

Recently I've been thinking a lot about the future and what life will actually hold for myself once I've finished the remaining minimum of a year and a half left of Uni. It's my second year right now and in a few months I'll be thinking about dissertation options (oh joy!), and further into the future, where my life will lead. The course I'm undergoing is a Computing course, nothing fancy, no added bonuses to the name like Super Ultimate Media Computing Studies of The World. Nah. Computing. short and sweet, much like my temperament with the course at the moment. This is actually a double bladed sword for myself... is Computing too vague to provide a specific area of expertise for an employer, or is Computing so open it can provide myself with a lot more opportunities than a specific course?

I have a lot of hopes in the future about where I want my life to go. My favourite option is becoming a teacher and I've had a lot of stick and disrespect about this decision from people in the past (this WAS school so sticks and stones, etc) just becaise I'm a male wanting to teach. Has society really gotten so sad to look down on male teaching? Even before university and my final year of that dreaded environment known as sixth form and A2 levels, I studied research into the perception of male teachers whether it be high school or primary, and even a shocking amount of the study showed that parents themselves even tend to look down on male teachers in primary schools. Now I'm not making a generalisation, I'm not saying ALL parents are like this because they absolutely are not, but it saddens me to think that this sad perception still exists in the 21st Century.

So Teaching is something I definitely want to pursue. I'll be honest with those that don't know me well enough, I had an opportunity to take a teaching course in one of the oldest Universities in Wales and a specialist teaching campus too. I took it, I went there, then I came home with my tail between my legs. Am I proud of this? No, of course not. But going into such a demanding, important course at the age of 18 felt completely wrong to me. How can an 18 year old with no life experience study something so young and expect it to be fine? I went into that course too naive and too ignorant, but it's something I absolutely want to look at in the future but when I feel I'm ready to dive into such an important choice.

So what else is there in the future I can think about? I love writing and had a superb time with my English language courses over my A Level years (probably the only good thing to come out of my school life but that's not important right now!) and Journalism is something I absolutely would take a glance at. Again it's a big step and it would be more towards a specialist area of journalism, something like Formula 1 that I love to watch, analyse and whatnot. I don't think I necessarily have the skills right now to be confident I could do this well but that's the same with my teaching possibilities; it's definitely something to look at after uni.

Of course with Computing I'll get the obviously computer connotated careers. Do I really want to spend my life sitting in front of a plasma screen sorting out databases and treatening to throw my laptop out of the window from the sheer frustration of programming? No, I don't. But Computing can provide me with a massive experience boost in many areas I would have never studied and can provide me with smaller jobs to build up to where I want to be in the future. So the future is bright, I have a long way to go and I'm only 20, yet I'm already considering where my life is going! Maybe I shouldn't but this is just me, my mind works this way and it ain't changing anytime soon!

March has now come upon us all too, has anyone else noticed how quick february went and 2009 in general so far?! Not that I'm complaining, the joyous sport of F1 is soon to be back on our televisions in just over 3 weeks and I have a lot to look forward to this year; going to London in April, going to see Wales v Finland on the 28th, Muse's new album and their tour in the Autumn and the possibility of going to Goodwood in July. Plus I'm slowly making my way towards my driving license, despite being slow step by steps I'm getting there!

So the future is bright. The future may not necessarily be orange, but it looking rosy nevertheless.