At 18, I boarded a plane from Morocco to the United States filled with excitement, ambition, and a deep sense of certainty: I was going to become a doctor. I had worked hard, earned a spot at Mount Holyoke College, and was about to begin what I believed was a carefully laid path toward a meaningful and respected career in medicine. Coming from a country where becoming a doctor is often regarded as the ultimate professional achievement, I wore that goal like a badge of honor. It symbolized success, sacrifice, and service.
My mother, herself a physician, had long been a role model. Her work was admired in our community, and the respect she commanded deeply influenced my understanding of what it meant to “make a difference.” In Moroccan society—where stability is prized and career prestige is closely tied to family pride—medicine was more than a profession. It was a social currency, a symbol of accomplishment, and, for many, the only logical endpoint for high-achieving students.
But beneath that certainty was something I hadn’t yet faced: the reality that this path, while noble, wasn’t one I had chosen through personal reflection. Like many students—especially those navigating cross-cultural pressures and generational expectations—I had internalized an idea of success that wasn’t entirely my own. I had pursued biology classes, volunteered at clinics, shadowed physicians, and joined science-focused extracurriculars. I was following the medical student “playbook” step by step.
And yet, I had never stopped to ask myself the most essential question: Do I truly want to live this life?
I didn’t question the sacrifices the profession demanded. I didn’t think twice about the emotional toll, the years of training, or the lifestyle it required. My focus was fixed on an endpoint that had been constructed for me—by my environment, by my upbringing, by a collective sense of what a “successful” future should look like. Medicine felt like a destination I was expected to arrive at, not a journey I had chosen.
It wasn’t until I was deep into college—immersed in labs, lectures, and clinical exposure—that I encountered a moment that forced me to pause. A moment that asked me to rethink everything I had built my academic identity around. That moment would eventually lead me away from a future in healthcare and into the world of literature, language, and cultural analysis—a world that felt, for the first time, fully mine.
How Personal Exploration Shapes Career Decisions
At Nova Scholar Education, we emphasize a core truth that often gets lost in the race toward college and career: the journey to a meaningful future is rarely linear. It isn’t about following a predetermined checklist—it’s about asking questions, reflecting deeply, and gaining exposure to the real-world nuances that shape each field. It’s about discovering, not declaring.
Yet many students, especially those from high-achieving or culturally traditional backgrounds, enter college with a script already written. They're told what success looks like before they’ve had the chance to define it for themselves. Certain professions—medicine, engineering, law—are upheld as default pathways, viewed not just as careers, but as obligations. Students often internalize these expectations long before they’ve had the opportunity to explore who they are or what truly motivates them.
My story is no exception. By the time I arrived at Mount Holyoke, I was fully committed to the pre-med track. I declared a major in Neuroscience, took on a rigorous course load, and sought out every opportunity that aligned with my goal. I joined student organizations focused on health and science, conducted laboratory research, and shadowed professionals in clinical settings. My resume was growing. My path looked impressive. And yet—I never paused to consider if I was actually fulfilled.
I was checking all the boxes, doing all the “right” things—but in retrospect, I was moving through it all on autopilot. I wasn’t exploring my options; I was executing a plan I had never questioned. That all changed the summer after my sophomore year, when I participated in what I thought would be a defining experience: an elite neuroscience internship at one of the country’s most prestigious research hospitals. Instead of confirming my ambitions, it unraveled them.
This turning point wasn’t dramatic on the surface. There was no crisis or failure. I excelled in the lab, completed my assignments, and contributed meaningfully to the team. But beneath the surface, a quiet and undeniable realization was building: this didn’t feel right.
I had always assumed that passion would follow success. That if I worked hard enough, I would eventually feel the excitement others described in their career paths. But what I felt was something closer to detachment. I respected the work—but I didn’t feel connected to it. I began to wonder whether I was truly choosing this life, or simply performing it. At the same time, something unexpected was happening in the background—something that would soon take center stage.
A Life-Changing Internship at NYU Langone
The summer after my sophomore year, I was awarded a Lynk Fellowship—a prestigious opportunity offered by Mount Holyoke College to support meaningful internship experiences. I chose to intern at NYU Langone Health, a world-class research hospital in New York City, and was placed in a cutting-edge neuroscience lab conducting research on thalamocortical interactions—a topic at the frontier of brain science. It was everything I thought I wanted.
I was working alongside brilliant researchers, contributing to studies with real clinical significance, and immersing myself in an environment that represented the pinnacle of scientific achievement. My resume was growing stronger by the day, and to anyone on the outside, I was excelling.
But inside, I felt something I hadn’t anticipated: disconnection. I completed every task assigned to me. I understood the science, engaged with the material, and appreciated the intellectual challenge. And yet, each day felt strangely hollow. The work was important, but it didn’t energize me. I began to notice a lack of emotional resonance. I wasn't curious about what came next—I was counting down the hours until I could return home and lose myself in a book.
And that’s where something unexpected began to unfold. That summer, I had also enrolled in a French Studies seminar focused on the Négritude movement. The course introduced me to thinkers like Frantz Fanon, Aimé Césaire, and Léopold Sédar Senghor, whose writings interrogated colonial identity, liberation, and the intersection of politics and culture. Their words stirred something in me that the lab never had. After long days of pipetting and analyzing data, I would stay up late reading Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks, not out of obligation, but out of pure fascination.
Where neuroscience had begun to feel clinical and distant, literature felt alive—messy, visceral, and deeply human. I wasn’t just reading; I was feeling, questioning, and connecting in a way I hadn’t experienced in any other academic setting.
The contrast was startling—and unsettling. How could I reconcile this growing sense of clarity with the years I had spent pursuing medicine? I had worked so hard to reach this point. Changing direction now felt unthinkable, even irresponsible. But the more I reflected, the more I realized that what I was experiencing wasn’t failure. It was awakening. I had stepped into what I thought was my dream opportunity—only to find that my dream had changed.
This realization didn’t invalidate the importance of the internship. On the contrary, it was one of the most valuable experiences of my college career—because it revealed what didn’t fit. It challenged my assumptions and forced me to confront a truth I had been too afraid to voice: I no longer wanted to become a doctor. And perhaps even more surprising—I wanted to become a scholar of literature.
Making the Difficult Decision to Change Majors
Returning to Mount Holyoke for my junior year, I carried a quiet storm within me. On the surface, I was the same student who had spent two years pursuing a future in medicine—majored in Neuroscience, excelled in labs, and fulfilled every expectation placed before me. But inside, everything had shifted. The internship at NYU Langone had unraveled a deep certainty I once held: that medicine was unquestionably the right path for me. I still respected the field, deeply so. I admired the discipline and the service it demanded, and I recognized how valuable my training could be. But I could no longer ignore the sense of emotional detachment I had felt while immersed in the work. I wasn’t simply tired or overworked—I was uninspired. And that, for me, was a red flag I couldn’t unsee.
At the same time, my interest in literature had grown from a quiet intrigue into a magnetic pull. I found myself increasingly consumed by the readings I encountered in my French Studies seminar—their questions about identity, power, language, and belonging spoke to me in a way that medical texts never had. I didn’t just enjoy them; I felt intellectually and emotionally activated. Literature wasn’t a distraction—it was becoming a calling. And yet, the thought of abandoning my original path filled me with anxiety. Could I really leave behind years of hard-earned progress? Would I be seen as unfocused or indecisive? How would I explain such a pivot to those who had believed in my medical ambitions from the beginning?
For weeks, I lived in a state of cognitive dissonance—pulled between the safety of the known and the risk of the unknown. I had long believed that success was synonymous with stability, and medicine offered just that: a clearly defined roadmap, social respect, and financial security. But the version of success I was beginning to imagine looked different. It was rooted not in prestige or predictability, but in purpose and alignment. Choosing French Studies meant choosing a life of inquiry, creativity, and cultural engagement—a path less defined, perhaps, but far more authentic to who I was becoming.
Making the decision to change my major was not a single moment, but a series of hard conversations—with advisors, friends, and most importantly, myself. Some of the people I trusted most expressed concern. They asked whether I was sure, whether I’d thought it through, whether I was giving up too much for too little. Their questions were fair—and they forced me to clarify my own. What was I really walking away from? What was I walking toward? What did I value most in a career: external validation, or internal resonance?
Ultimately, I chose to follow my instincts and officially switched my major to French Studies. It was the first major academic decision I made not out of obligation, but out of genuine desire. I knew it wouldn’t be easy. I knew it might come with professional ambiguity or cultural skepticism. But I also knew I couldn’t ignore what had become clear: that fulfillment would only come if I aligned my education with my evolving sense of self.
In hindsight, that decision was not just a change of major—it was a reclamation of agency. It marked the moment I stopped performing someone else’s idea of success and began building a version of success rooted in authenticity, curiosity, and courage. And while it didn’t answer every question about my future, it taught me something even more important: that asking the right questions—and being brave enough to change course in pursuit of the answers—is its own form of wisdom.
Why Mentorship and Exploration Matter
Looking back, I often reflect on how different my academic path might have been had I encountered intentional mentorship and exploratory guidance earlier in my journey. I don’t regret the experiences that brought me to where I am today—but I do wonder how much sooner I might have found alignment if someone had encouraged me to pause, reflect, and explore multiple fields without fear of failure, judgment, or lost momentum. Like many students, I felt pressure to specialize early—to commit quickly and demonstrate unwavering focus. But real clarity doesn’t come from rigidity; it comes from exposure, experimentation, and honest reflection.
That’s precisely the gap that Nova Scholar Education fills—by helping students understand that career discovery is not about finding a single “right” answer, but about engaging in a process of self-discovery, intellectual exploration, and iterative decision-making. Through one-on-one mentorship with world-class scholars and professionals from institutions like Stanford, Harvard, Yale, MIT, and Princeton, students are invited to think expansively, not reductively. They are not pushed toward pre-defined tracks but guided toward discovering their own.
In programs such as Nova Research, this vision comes to life. Students are encouraged to pursue topics they genuinely care about—whether that’s artificial intelligence, environmental justice, bioethics, postcolonial literature, or global health policy. Mentors work closely with them not only to build technical research skills but to ask critical questions: What excites you? What challenges you? Can you imagine yourself engaging with this work five years from now? What are you curious about that doesn’t yet have a label?
This approach is transformational because it normalizes uncertainty and encourages experimentation. Students learn that changing direction isn’t a sign of indecision—it’s a sign of growth. They are empowered to reimagine what their future might look like and to see that the path to success isn’t always a straight line.
Had I experienced this kind of mentorship structure early in my college years—where exploration was supported rather than quietly discouraged—I may have reached my current field with far more confidence and far less internal conflict. Instead of feeling like I was “giving up” one dream to pursue another, I might have realized sooner that dreams can evolve—and that it's okay to revise the script.
What makes Nova Scholar’s model especially powerful is that it combines academic rigor with personal relevance. Students are not simply placed into pre-designed tracks; they’re encouraged to define their own intellectual questions and work on projects that are meaningful to them. This is not only how strong college applications are built—it’s how self-aware, future-ready students are cultivated.
Mentorship and exploration matter not because they guarantee easy answers, but because they give students the tools to navigate complex questions with clarity, confidence, and resilience. They help young people trust their instincts, test their limits, and ultimately discover not just what they’re good at—but what they care deeply enough to pursue.
How Internships Can Reveal Your Passion
Internships are often framed as the logical next step in confirming a career choice. Students pursue them to “get experience,” build resumes, and demonstrate commitment to a particular field. But what we don’t talk about enough is their equally important—perhaps even more powerful—potential to challenge assumptions and reroute ambition. That was certainly true in my case. When I began my internship at NYU Langone, I expected it to solidify my identity as a future physician. Instead, it gently unraveled it.
My experience didn’t involve failure or dissatisfaction in the traditional sense. I performed well in the lab, contributed to the research on thalamocortical interactions, and met brilliant mentors. On paper, it was a success. But emotionally, I felt disconnected. The excitement I expected to feel in such a prestigious environment never came. Instead, I felt an unshakable sense of detachment—like I was playing a role that no longer fit. Far from validating my interest in medicine, the internship exposed a quiet truth: I was no longer passionate about the work. And that realization was as valuable as any affirmation.
This kind of turning point is more common than we often acknowledge. Many students discover that the day-to-day reality of a career—its rhythms, pressures, and practices—looks very different from the abstract version they had imagined. And when that happens, the experience becomes not a setback, but a gift. Internships, shadowing opportunities, and real-world projects give students the chance to encounter a career from the inside—to feel the work, not just study it. No syllabus or classroom can fully replicate that.
This is why experiential learning is central to Nova Scholar Education’s approach. Programs like Nova Fundamentals (for middle school students) and Nova Research (for middle and high school students) are structured to help students not only explore academic content, but test their passions in real contexts. Whether they’re writing a scientific research paper, designing a sustainability initiative, analyzing literary texts, or collaborating on an AI-based tool, students are encouraged to ask themselves: Does this excite me? Does this challenge me? Can I see myself doing this beyond the classroom?
The goal isn’t to lead students to a single “right” answer—it’s to create space for reflection and recalibration. Nova Scholar mentors, drawn from institutions like MIT, Yale, and Stanford, guide students through this process by helping them interpret their experiences critically and constructively. What did this project teach you? What surprised you? What would you change next time? These conversations turn internships and research experiences into tools for growth, not just résumé lines.
For many students, this kind of insight arrives not at the beginning of their academic journey, but halfway through—sometimes even later. But what if we encouraged this exploration sooner? What if, instead of waiting for students to reach a breaking point, we built systems that welcomed uncertainty, normalized change, and valued what doesn’t fit as much as what does?
My internship didn’t take me further down the path to medicine—it opened the door to something new. And that, I’ve come to realize, was its greatest value.
Balancing Passion and Practicality
One of the most common concerns voiced by students—and often more urgently, by their parents—is the fear that following a passion might lead to a dead end professionally. There's a widespread perception that students must choose between pursuing what they love and securing a stable, financially viable future. But in truth, the divide between passion and practicality is often overstated, and in many cases, entirely false.
When I made the decision to pivot from neuroscience to French literature, I faced this fear firsthand. I had invested years into my STEM training and carried the weight of others’ expectations. Would switching to the humanities render all of that effort meaningless? Would I be closing the door to a "serious" or "useful" career?
What I quickly discovered, however, was that skills are not confined by discipline. My background in neuroscience didn’t disappear when I walked into a literature seminar. Instead, it shaped the way I approached texts—with precision, critical analysis, and a strong foundation in research design. I found that the logical reasoning I had developed through lab work enhanced my ability to construct arguments, parse language, and even acquire foreign languages. The ability to identify patterns, synthesize information, and communicate complex ideas—these are not skills exclusive to science or humanities. They’re deeply transferable and highly valuable across professional contexts, from writing and publishing to policy analysis, consulting, and beyond.
This is a message we reinforce constantly at Nova Scholar Education: that students do not have to choose between passion and practicality. The goal is not to narrow down interests to a single, "safe" option—it’s to discover how different interests can intersect, complement, and inform a meaningful career path. We help students explore this through:
- Interdisciplinary project design, which encourages students to bring together seemingly unrelated fields—such as data science and ethics, biology and public policy, or literature and technology.
- Career strategy workshops, where students reflect on their personal and academic experiences to craft adaptable, forward-thinking career narratives.
- Mentorship guidance focused on transferable skills, where students learn how to translate their research, creative projects, or independent studies into real-world value.
Rather than forcing students to box themselves into predefined roles, Nova Scholar’s programs encourage them to embrace complexity and develop a flexible, resilient mindset—one that allows for change, growth, and creative problem-solving. In today’s workforce, where industries evolve quickly and careers are increasingly nonlinear, these qualities are not just helpful—they’re essential.
The truth is that a career built around passion is not inherently less practical. What matters is how students leverage their interests—how they translate what excites them into impact, how they communicate their strengths, and how they design their professional journeys with both curiosity and strategy.
By giving students permission to explore—and by equipping them with the tools to connect their passions with purpose—we help them build futures that are not only viable, but fulfilling.
From Uncertainty to a Ph.D. at Princeton
Today, as I approach the final stages of my Ph.D. in French at Princeton University, I often find myself reflecting on the winding path that led me here. It was a path marked by uncertainty, internal conflict, and emotionally fraught decisions—but also by immense growth, intellectual awakening, and a deep sense of alignment with my values and passions.
The decision to walk away from a well-established plan and pivot toward something less conventional was not an easy one. At the time, it felt risky—like stepping into fog without a map. I had no guarantee of success, no clear model to follow. What I did have was a growing conviction that fulfillment couldn’t come from simply following a script, no matter how prestigious or practical that script appeared to be.
Ironically, the moment that felt most like a professional detour—my internship at NYU Langone—turned out to be the most defining experience of all. What initially seemed like a misalignment or even a failure was, in hindsight, a turning point. It provided the clarity I hadn’t realized I was seeking. It challenged my assumptions, not just about a career in medicine, but about who I was and what truly animated me intellectually and emotionally.
That experience didn’t just redirect my major; it reshaped the way I understood education, success, and purpose. It taught me to listen more closely to my instincts, to value uncertainty as part of the learning process, and to trust that growth often happens in the most unexpected places.
As I’ve progressed through graduate school—delving into postcolonial theory, language politics, and the voices of writers who grappled with displacement and resistance—I’ve felt a strong sense of belonging in my work. I’ve found joy in teaching, excitement in archival research, and purpose in the questions I pursue. And none of that would have happened had I stayed the course out of fear or obligation.
I now believe that many students will face similar inflection points—moments when they realize that the path they’re on may not reflect who they’ve become. These moments are not failures. They are invitations: to reconsider, to realign, and to reshape their futures. But navigating them requires courage—and support. That’s why mentorship, reflection, and exposure to a diversity of experiences are so crucial. When students are given the space to explore and the tools to reflect, they’re more likely to discover paths that lead not just to achievement, but to meaning. The lesson I carry forward—one I hope others embrace—is this: uncertainty is not the enemy of success. It is often its beginning.
Exploration Leads to Purpose
If there’s one takeaway I hope students, parents, and educators carry with them, it’s this: career paths are not fixed, and success is not confined to traditional definitions. We often speak about futures as though they are set in stone—as if choosing a major at 18 determines the rest of one’s life. But the truth is, the most rewarding journeys are rarely linear. They are shaped by moments of questioning, redirection, and growth.
In a world that is evolving faster than ever—technologically, culturally, and professionally—the ability to explore with intention, reflect honestly, and adapt thoughtfully is more valuable than any predetermined plan. Whether you’re a high school student beginning to map out college interests, a college sophomore rethinking your major, or someone simply seeking more meaning in your studies, know that it is never too late to ask yourself: What truly excites me? What do I want my learning—and my life—to be about?
The process of discovering a fulfilling path doesn’t start with a final answer—it starts with curiosity, and it thrives in environments that allow students to question, experiment, and evolve. At Nova Scholar Education, we walk alongside students on that journey—not by prescribing outcomes, but by helping them build the confidence and clarity to define success on their own terms. Through one-on-one mentorship with world-class professionals, interdisciplinary, project-based learning, and structured opportunities for real-world engagement, we empower students to uncover who they are—not just academically, but personally.
Because the most fulfilling careers are not the ones chosen for us by societal expectation, family tradition, or fear of instability. They are the ones we choose consciously, because they align with our strengths, values, and vision for the world. Success isn’t about staying on the “right” path. It’s about building a path that reflects your evolving self—one marked not by certainty, but by purpose. And that journey begins not with the pressure to decide, but with the freedom to explore.
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