No one knew what I wanted to study. 

With an IB subject combination of HL Theatre, Langlit, and Psychology and SL ESS, Chinese B, and Math AI, to many, it was as though I had closed my eyes and pulled subjects out of a bag, all while trying to avoid as much STEM as possible. The reality was that I simply chose the subjects I liked. I did not envision an equation of IB subjects to university majors to jobs; I honestly went in with my IGCSE grades and a dream. 

Contrary to the chorus of groaning high school students, I actually loved school. Dare I say, I enjoyed the IB; granted, my cohort got what I dub as “the IB (Covid’s version)”. Writing my IAs and EE was something I genuinely enjoyed, and a part of me never wanted to submit them just so I could keep writing and brainstorming. To add to my anomalously positive feelings towards the IB, TOK was my favourite subject. Looking back, perhaps my chosen career path did not come as much of a surprise as I thought. I might have been at home in the performing arts. Still, despite the thrill I found on stage, profile lights searing my skin and having an audience at the tip of my fingers, I found a strange solace behind my laptop, pouring over journals and clicking my calloused guitarist fingers on my keyboard, watching a once blank document fill with my musings. 

When it came to choosing a university, I narrowed down my options to Singapore and the UK. However every week or so when someone would ask me what I wanted to major in, my answer would change each time. I have gone from marketing, to philosophy, to law, to media and communications, to fashion business, back to law, and then finally landing on psychology. That was my problem, I liked too many things. If it were up to me, I would spend my entire life in university learning anything and everything my heart desired. Alas, I had to make a decision and I stuck with Psychology. However, a part of me still carried doubts. I was eighteen, tasked with making a decision that could dictate the very trajectory of my adult life. That is a lot of pressure to put on a teenager and my capricious academic interests only made this harder. By the grace of God, or rather Ms Daver, my university counsellor, I was introduced to the Melbourne model: a programme that gave me more leeway to explore more subjects before deciding on a major while still granting me flexibility when my major was declared. Just like that, I was on an eight-hour plane ride down under. 

As per my original plan, I came in with the intent to major in Psychology. However, in my first year alone, I found myself crunching in numbers for a lab report one day, chasing down interviewees (and getting ghosted by all of them) for a news article the next, and hunched over a midi keyboard wondering if I had used 2-5-1 too many times in one song the next. Every day was an adventure on and off campus and my friends and family back home were kept on their toes with every update from me. 

However the subject that has brought me on the greatest adventures was one I had taken on a whim. Lectures were two hours long in a humongous hall with the worst seat configuration imaginable right when I would typically be eating lunch, but there were so many moments where I would find my knuckles turning white while gripping onto the edge of my seat as I drummed my boots under the desk in pure excitement - over Anthropology. 

I had never considered myself to be the academic type at all, I was Regina the singer, the dancer, the actress up until I got on that plane to Melbourne. Here I was just Regina, what follows ‘the’ was now in my hands. The plan was just to read just enough to know what was going on, go to class, and go on with my day. This lasted for a grand total of two weeks before my voice became a familiar and common fixture within the yellowing walls of the old moot court-turned classroom. At first, answering questions was me just rambling and hoping for the best. It was like TOK all over again except with more at stake. If I said something that did not quite track back in Mr Bromley’s classroom, I did not feel like I had much to lose. Regina the performer did not need to be the brightest in the room, she often did not feel like it most of the time. However Regina ‘the’, could decide that she could be, or that she could try, and that chance was one I was not taking for granted. Once the words left my lips, I braced myself for impact, that nothing I said made sense and that I had somehow read Malinowski’s work backwards, internally squeezing my eyes shut and holding my breath. 

But nothing.

I looked up to find my classmates’ eyes on me, but I did not feel belittled, I was empowered instead. What was just an answer to a question on the board turned into a conversation between me and my professor with the rest of the class as an audience. In a way, I was performing again, the rush feeling all too familiar. 

As sad as it sounds, for the first time, I felt smart. I was born and raised in Singapore and every experience I have had here serves as building blocks for my identity. My failures, successes, highs, and lows all fit together; my community pushing those pieces into the puzzle that made up who I was, or at least who I thought I was. Leaving my hometown for a different continent where no one knew any of that was like diving into cold water. The ‘smart’ kids I used to compare myself to were not here, the boxes I was put in were as gone as the ones I had packed my things into when I left. The version of myself that I had always wanted to be was free to be realised, and no one and nothing could hold me back or stop me now.

The reason Anthropology drew me in is the same reason some people turn away from it, its breadth. The fact that I liked too many things was no longer a problem, this time it was to my advantage. From going all the way to the Mormon church for a bi-annual stake conference to explaining to my professors the concept of a situationship with academic citations, to talking to a robot designed for elder care that was a bit too quick to call me ‘sunshine’ for my liking, the sky was the limit. 

I had a script explaining what my major was in one sentence memorised like a reflex. I have lost count of the number of times I have recited “Oh no worries! Anthropology is the study of people, cultures, communities, it’s a whole lot of fun…ooh close but no, Sociology is another thing.”

Another common response I get is “What on earth are you planning on doing with that degree?” Typically coupled with a raised eyebrow and well-meaning side-eye. Unlike the dilemma I had with psychology, I knew immediately what I wanted to do— academia. To spend my days sifting through mountains of literature; going out into the field with a notebook and pen; talking to people; learning everything I can to then bring everything back and teach. My experience in using my voice on a stage translated into hosting a radio show called “r/loveletters” with Radio Fodder which drew inspiration from a digital ethnography I conducted on student romance, and maybe the hours I spend reading every placard at the Asian Civilisation Museum or art gallery could turn into me being the one to write them. The infinite possibilities of my future layout of my sight for now, but I eagerly await the day I get to greet it with open arms and the zeal I have always had. This is the life I am itching to live, even if it means enduring the arduous monotony of grant applications and ethics proposals. 

Still, no one knows what I study.

Maybe no one even knows me.

Yet unlike three years ago, I have found a nest within that ambiguity and solace in the perspective that a simple turn of my head could lead me down entirely novel paths. In the past, I would have shut down at the idea of not having a compass in hand, but now I have come to find that true north is being true to yourself. Not caring about what comes after my name in reference, following the quick beat of my toes tapping under my chair in unbridled energy as I soak in everything there is to know about the subject I love. In those moments where I lose my way, passion will always guide me home. The boxes I lived in back home now feel so small, and the vast expanse I inhabit now feels warm. The familiar, now strange and the strange, now familiar.