When I was four years old, I helped my mother bake chocolate chip cookies for the first time. After that, I was convinced I’d grow up to become a baker. I held fast to that dream until I was six, furiously beating eggs and scooping flour into measuring cups. But after I was selected to perform at my ballet school’s recital with the principal dancers, I decided instead to become a ballerina. I practiced grand jetés in the living room and clenched my teeth as I struggled into a split on the kitchen tiles.

My plans changed again when I was 10, after an astronomy book inspired me to become an astronaut. My dream of orbiting masses of swirling gas shifted to a job in genetics – or perhaps neurology – after a summer of poring over my parents’ medical journals. When I was 15, I firmly set my foot down under the instruction of an inspiring English teacher. I was sure I’d become a professor of English literature – for a few months, at least – until I joined my school newspaper The Falconer, absolutely certain this time to become a journalist. I’m 17 now, and no closer to choosing a career.

I still love to bake. I still love to dance (though usually alone in my room). I still pause by the window and gaze at the gleaming pinpricks in the night sky, wondering what marvels lie enveloped in that velvet vastness. I conduct DNA research at a lab and pester my parents to keep up with their research. I guiltily indulge in reading by flashlight under the covers until my arm aches and eyelids droop, and I’m as involved as ever as a proud “Falconerd.”

I think my indecisiveness stems from the fact that I still have so much to explore. After all, I have over a year before graduation, and in that year I’ll examine every corner, devour every experience, until I’m mature and knowledgeable enough to formulate my ambitions. Friends of mine already have their dream medical schools picked out or are taking courses in preparation to become software engineers, but I want to be absolutely certain of the road I’ll take. I want to experience everything.

And I can be sure none of it’ll go to waste. Upon entering high school, I tried my hand at every extracurricular I could. I joined The Falconer, edited for the school science journal, and competed in volleyball, academic team, quiz bowl, and two types of debate. By the beginning of junior year, when more focus was imperative, I was forced to narrow my scope. Still, debate cultivated my confidence in public speaking, trained me to improvise and think faster on my feet, and helped me become a more articulate person. This all boosted my ability as a student journalist to write concise articles and interview complete strangers. I miss the sting in my fingers after serving an ace, the exhilaration after landing from a kill, and the squeaking of sneakers on the volleyball court, but the sport taught me how to better interact with fellow writers and academic team members. The exhaustion of long hours in the gym was a taste of the dedication required for late-night layouts in the lab.

John Steinbeck spent five years at college, taking only the courses that interested him before dropping out. I’m comforted by knowing that his success was defined not by a college degree but by his ability to integrate into his writing the cumulative knowledge he gained from not only school but also the odd jobs he took as an itinerant worker or the Sea of Cortez voyage he took with Ed Ricketts. Although seemingly connected by no pattern, these experiences molded Steinbeck’s work and outlook on life.

I suppose I do know my true goal, encompassing all those previous and all those following it: I want to learn. Perhaps it’s fitting that I’m an avid journalist and quiz bowl player; I want to inhale and greedily gulp every experience, every factoid I encounter. In what form my goal will ultimately manifest is still hazy. But soon, I hope, I will have the proper tools to decide.

Even then, I’ll continue to examine and savor every facet of life. I’m reminded of a remark Kurt Vonnegut Jr. once made about his wife’s insistence that he buy an envelope online.

“I pretend not to hear her,” he said, “and go out to get an envelope because I’m going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope. I meet a lot of people … and a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And I don’t know … We’re dancing animals … we love to move around. And we’re not supposed to dance at all anymore.”

Mr. Vonnegut, I’ll show your wife a plié or two.