The summer before I started at Calvin I met with the premed advisor and was ready to begin my premed experience. However, my wonderful college thought it would be a nice idea to hand me a course catalog. Now to you that might sound quite simple, but a course catalog can be a dangerous thing when you’re a young, overzealous freshman with many interests and a desire to explore new things. In the end I decided to go with my competing interests and not take the science courses I would need for medical school. To be honest, I was essentially letting go of my dream to become a doctor…but God was not. (Little did I know that what was about to happen the next few years was his way of refining my motives for studying medicine.) I wasn’t sure what else I wanted to study, but I knew for sure I wanted to take some Spanish classes. I was so sick of everyone thinking I spoke Spanish because my last name is Cortez that I decided I needed to learn to speak Spanish. In fact, when I took my placement test the summer before starting at Calvin, one of the proctors came up to me and said something along the lines of “oh, we know you’ll do just fine on this test,” as if I was a native speaker and would hop right in to the upper-level Spanish courses!
To make a long story short, I floated between many majors the first two years of college. Spring semester of my freshman year my Spanish professor, Maria Rodriguez, “tricked” me into going to Honduras. I say trick because she told me just to fill out the application to see what would happen and the next thing I knew I was reading an email that welcomed me to the fall semester’s study abroad group. (My wonderful girlfriend Annie was not too excited when I, out of nowhere, told her that I wouldn’t be around next semester…but thankfully she forgave me by going to Spain and making me endure a semester at Calvin all alone). My experience in Honduras was amazing and it really shaped me into the man I am today. When I got back from Honduras, I felt very comfortable with my Spanish and began to think about what I would do the rest of my life. Now that I was competent with Spanish, I recognized that my profession could extend itself to an even larger community. However, what discipline was I passionate about enough to study for the next few years, and would also result in a resource I could offer to others?
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