<p>I'm not sure if this is even the right thread to post this but since MIT made me think about it, here we go.</p>
<p>I'm currently a freshman in high school. So, I still have about 2 years before I apply for MIT and I'm an international applicant. </p>
<p>I always hear people/admission officers/ over here(and at the blogs) say "Don't do stuff just for the sake of getting into a college. Do it because you love it, because you have a passion for it. Try finding something you love doing, are passionate about and work on it."</p>
<p>I've been constantly on the search for something that I love doing. I've experimented with a lot of things. Drawing, Programming, Animation, Sports, Music, Writing, linguistics, Astronomy. But none of them have appealed to me. None of them make me feel like I'm passionate about that activity. I've even tried finding a love for Physics, Maths and Chemistry. They sure do seem 'interesting' but that's about it. </p>
<p>School starts in 3 days and once it gets underway, I'll be under a lot of academic obligations and probably will not find time to experiment new stuff. </p>
<p>How do I go about finding something that I'm passionate about? </p>
<p>Being passionate about something seems to be an important part of the application process at MIT (and it's kind of important in general as well). </p>
<p>I'm just lost. I've tried a lot of avenues but nothing has really appealed to me insofar. Any ideas people?</p>
<p>Was that implied in my post? If yes, I didn’t mean to.</p>
<p>Science does interest me! While pure sciences don’t, I’m definitely ‘interested’ in Engineering and Computer-Science. I’m not really interested in them right now but maybe, just maybe, I’ll grow an interest in them in the future. and like countless others, I feel like I ‘belong’ at MIT.</p>
<p>I don’t mean “what do you like doing in school” or “what do you like doing when you are figuring out what would be good for college.” </p>
<p>I mean what do you actually like doing. </p>
<p>Hopefully this is not a difficult question for you to answer. If it is, then you need to take some time to figure out what it is you actually enjoy in life, because that is much more important than your college applications.</p>
<p>adarshnet, don’t worry about it too much just yet. At your age I thought I wanted to be a journalist (I’m a computational biology major now). I might still end up writing. I’ve switched my major(s) five times now. I’m 20, two years into MIT, and I still haven’t figured it out. Just do stuff you like, and don’t do stuff you abhor. Put your all into the things you like most. Not all of them will work out–most of them won’t–but a few of them will, and then fade, and then some more will appear. You won’t even notice the pieces coming together because you’ll be doing things you like. Then one day you’ll look back and it’ll look like it made sense all along.</p>
<p>Sometimes finding your passion takes time. Sometimes it’s not love at first sight. It’s not like you can start playing piano and then just fall in love with piano, because most likely you need to practice and get better before you can really start playing beautiful music and appreciate piano. That initial learning and practicing is when you make the most mistakes and is also when most people quit.</p>
<p>What I’m saying is that, instead of trying out so many activities, pick a few that sound at least moderately interesting to you. Give them your all, but also give them some time. Let them grow on you, and after a few months, if you find yourself dreading something, quit and don’t look back, but those remaining few activities that you keep pushing through regardless might just be where your passion lies.</p>