Middlebury Magazine

  • Recent Stories
  • Menu
    • Features
    • Essays
    • Q&A
    • Podcasts
    • Review
    • Videos
    • About
    • Advertising
    • Contact
    • Support
    • Writers’ Guidelines
  • Search

Fall 2018 Old Chapel

An Unexpected Path

In preparing our students broadly, we prepare them for the twists and turns that define most every life.

By Laurie L. Patton
Illustration by Montse Bernal
November 1, 2018
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • Email icon

There is no script.

That may be exactly how one Middlebury student found himself writing one.

“My majoring in film at Middlebury wasn’t what my parents expected,” he told me. “When I came to Middlebury, I planned to major in computer science. It’s what I thought I wanted. It’s what I told them I was interested in. But then I took a course on film history because it seemed interesting. I never looked back. Here I am, a senior, a film and media studies major. I’ve found my calling.”

I believe he’s right. I’ve seen his work—it’s beautiful and inspired—and I’ve seen his passion for his field of study. I see how happy and rewarded he is as he satisfies the requirements of his major—all because he chose to take a chance and explore a subject away from his planned focus.

This student’s story is one of dozens I’ve heard from current students. I’ve heard often about how before Middlebury, they believed their lives were on certain paths—a major, a career, a destination—and how a deviation from those paths took them into lives more surprising and more rewarding than they’d expected.

It’s also a story I hear again and again from the Middlebury alumni I meet, and the lives I read about in these pages and so many others. Many of these lives bear little resemblance to the plans that existed at the start of college, or its end. A lawyer becomes an artist. An artist becomes a lawyer. An academic becomes an administrator. An apolitical person becomes an activist. A guidance counselor becomes a financial planner. A teacher becomes a novelist. A musician takes a chance to go live abroad, and a new career as a translator emerges.

What allows for this kind of flexibility, resilience, openness to opportunity? In large part, I believe, it is the kind of liberal arts education offered at Middlebury. As our understanding of the world expands, that education expands, too. With participation from our students, as well as our faculty, we continue to examine and update our liberal arts curriculum to ensure that it is best preparing our students for the world that they’re living in. This includes broadening the curriculum to encourage and prompt students to diversify their interests and deepen their understanding of the world.

In preparing our students broadly, we prepare them for the unexpected paths, the twists and turns (both sharp and gentle) that define most every life. Our response to those unexpected opportunities depends on what we know about ourselves and the world around us. A Middlebury education does not make the path easy—it’s preparation for the tough path ahead.

Sometimes it’s a matter of choice. You choose a major after finding a course, or a professor, that delights you, and you find you keep going back for more. You choose to study abroad in another language, not your first, and in an unexpected region—Yaoundé, Cameroon, rather than Poitiers, France; or Montevideo, Uruguay, rather than Madrid, Spain.

Other times, it’s a lack of choice—a class you have to take because the course you want is closed. The room, or roommate, you have to choose because your plans fell apart. The job you accept after you’re turned down for the one you want.

Often, it’s about the work you think and feel you are ready for, rather than the position or title or even identity that you might be taking on. When people ask me, “How did a scholar of early Indian history and culture become an educational leader?” I respond that, at every moment of decision in my career, I asked myself what kind of work I could do that would be the most service to the world. Then I knew I was authentically responding to the opportunities the world was offering, rather than simply fulfilling a role or holding a title.

I’ve turned down leadership roles because, even though the role might have been attractive, I knew someone else would be better for the job, and I wouldn’t be authentically responding to an opportunity for service. Viewed in that light, the script and the journey both unfold in unexpected ways.

I make it a point to emphasize to all students—new and returning—how important it is to be willing to go down the unexpected path when opportunities arise—even if it leads to what one might perceive as failure.

It’s important—necessary—to move toward the uncertainty, rather than demand what we expected, to follow the script that we believe was written for us—even if, in truth, that’s not how the script goes.

Because there is no script.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent Stories

Features

A Dog’s Life

A filmmaker takes us into the minds of the animals who are part of our families.

By Sara Thurber Marshall
Photograph by Randal Ford
April 4, 2025

On Parenting

Caitlin McCormick Murray ’05 has some thoughts on what it means to be a good mom.

By Frederick Reimers ’93
Photograph by Justin Patterson
March 15, 2025

Object Lessons

Curator Rebekah Irwin sees Middlebury's Special Collections as a laboratory, where antiquities meet utility.

By Caroline Crawford
Photograph by Adam Detour
August 23, 2024

Seeing the Forest for the Trees

How one alumna is embracing a distinctive reforesting technique that promotes accelerated ecological benefits.

By Elena Valeriote, MA Italian '19 in conversation with Hannah Lewis '97
Illustrations by Karlotta Freier
August 16, 2024

Dispatches

Thanks for the Memories

A student-curated exhibit explores the Middlebury experience through more than a century of undergrad scrapbooks.

By Jessie Raymond '90
Photographs by Todd Balfour
May 5, 2025

Fear Factor

A scientific model—and work of art—warns of the next pandemic.

By Jessie Raymond '90
Photograph by Jonathan Blake
April 4, 2025

From NESCAC to NFL?

Thomas Perry '25 has a shot at playing football on Sundays.

By Matt Jennings
Photograph by Rodney Wooters
March 11, 2025

Words in Space

A NASA interpreter bridges the language gap, one mission at a time.

By Jessie Raymond '90
Illustrations by Davide Bonazzi
February 15, 2025

Keeping Her Stick on the Ice

An alumna’s passion for ice hockey puts her in the record books.

By Sara Thurber Marshall
Illustration by Connie Noble
January 26, 2025

Watch Party

Henry Flores ’01 builds a community of collectors.

By Jessie Raymond '90
Photograph by Hubert Kolka
January 15, 2025

A Man of Letters

The art of letter writing may be in decline, but one alumnus has kept it alive in a unique way.

By Sara Thurber Marshall
Photograph used with the permission of Melvin B. Yoken
October 9, 2024

If the Sneaker Fits

Adam King ’05 brings an Asian aesthetic—and celebrates Asian American culture—with his startup, 1587 Sneakers.

By Jessie Raymond ’90
Photograph by Sasha Greenhalgh
August 22, 2024

Jacob Shammash and the Gift of the Torah

A story of two journeys.

By Jessie Raymond '90
Photographs by Paul Dahm
April 21, 2024
View All

Essays

Shear Madness

A yarn shop owner with no livestock experience takes an unlikely detour.

By Lindsey Spoor, MA French ’08
Illustration by Ben Kirchner
April 4, 2025

Q&A

37 Minutes with Lorraine Besser

The professor and philosopher talks about the three elements of the “good life”—especially the one happiness culture overlooks.

By Jessie Raymond '90
Photograph by Oliver Parini
April 4, 2025

Quotation

A summer immersed in a language can do wonders, as veterans of Middlebury College’s famous language-learning program can attest. The lockdown is clearly going to amount to the equivalent of about two summers, and there are mini-Middleburys happening in millions of houses worldwide.”

—John McWhorter, writing “The Coronavirus Generation Will Use Language Differently” in the Atlantic.

Podcasts

The Exit Interview with Middlebury President Laurie L. Patton

With her presidency at Middlebury coming to an end, the host of this podcast becomes its final guest.

By Middlebury Magazine Staff
December 18, 2024

The Monterey Trialogue: A Distinct Take on Superpower Diplomacy featuring Anna Vassilieva and Peter Slezkine

Our guests for episode six of season three are Anna Vassilieva and Peter Slezkine, the folks behind the Monterey Trialogue—which brings together leading experts from the United States, China, and Russia for in-depth discussions of their countries' interests and concerns in the vital regions of the world.

By Middlebury Magazine Staff
July 19, 2024

Education as the Great Equalizer, featuring Annie Weinberg ’10

Our guest for episode five of season three is Annie Weinberg '10, the founder and executive director of Alexander Twilight Academy, an educational catalyst program in Boston, Massachusetts, that supports students from under-resourced backgrounds.

By Middlebury Magazine Staff
March 14, 2024

Review

Editors’ Picks for March and April

By Middlebury Magazine Staff
April 10, 2025

Editors’ Picks for January and February

By Middlebury Magazine Staff
February 14, 2025

Long Live Brazenhead

Out of a secret bookstore comes a unique literary review.

By Sara Thurber Marshall
Photograph by Todd Balfour
January 13, 2025

Videos

Creating Community Through Hip Hop

For three days in March, the sounds, styles, and fashions of global hip hop converged on Middlebury for an electric symposium.

By Jordan Saint-Louis '24
April 17, 2023

Pomp and Unusual Circumstances

As viewed from above.

By Chris Spencer
June 1, 2021

Davis the Owl Returns Home

Having recovered from life-threatening injuries, a beautiful winged creature is released to its natural habitat.

By Andrew Cassell
April 22, 2021
Middlebury College
  • Alumni
  • Newsroom
  • Contact Us
  • icon-instagram

The views presented are not necessarily those of the editors or the official policies of the College.

© 2025 Middlebury College Publications.