From Oct. 8-13, I slept little, ate virtually nothing, and lived off adrenaline. It was awesome. I participated in Hilltop on the Hill, a program that takes CCPA and journalism students to Washington DC to experience political communication first hand.

This year, thanks to Professor Rita Kirk, we met with and talked to the best of the best. We were debriefed on African policy by the State Department, given a private tour of the Capitol, were able to sit in the studio during a taping of “The Situation Room” with Wolf Blitzer, got shown around CNN by CNN’s political director, met with one of Obama’s press coordinators, and talked to speech writers, press secretaries, and political gurus galore.

The experience was something I will never forget. That sounds cliché, but there is really no other way to describe it. It was the first time I had ever been to Washington DC, so it was absolutely amazing to really experience it instead of just visiting the monuments, touring the sites, and taking thousands of pictures. Instead, I was inside the sites, meeting with the people that work there and experiencing real life in Washington, D.C.

But what was so valuable about the trip was that it really showed me, not only what to expect out of my major, but what my chosen career path would be like as well as alternatives within that same field. It helped show me what I could realistically expect, rather than the idealized image I had worked up in my mind.

Because of this trip, I have changed around some of my goals. And I am so thankful that I have, because it would be awful to wake up in the morning 10 years from now hating my job and wishing I had never even tried.

There is such value in actually experiencing the life you have planned before you have to live it. So many college students graduate with no idea of what to expect, get their dream job, and then end up saying, “I had no idea it was going to be like this.” We build up the aggrandized pictures of what our future will be like: we save lives, stop wars, make the headlines and appear in magazines kissing babies. But what we don’t ever picture is reality.

Programs like Hilltop on the Hill give you the opportunity to test-drive a career. They give you the ability to peer into your career of choice, and almost live that life for a short while. They might run you ragged and make you wish that you hadn’t given up your fall break, but they are certainly worth it.

This program, while it made me reconsider what I really wanted, also reaffirmed decisions that I had already made. I transferred to SMU from UTD this year, and for the first two months of the semester I really wondered if I had made the right choice. I wasn’t particularly enjoying my classes like I thought I should, I was paying a lot of money to be here, and I just couldn’t figure out why I thought SMU would be better than UTD. Hilltop on the Hill showed me that I made the right choice.

SMU has so many opportunities that are unavailable anywhere else. The number of trips, study abroad opportunities, internships, and student organizations are astounding and truly unique. I think that SMU students take the myriad of opportunities available to them for granted because they know nothing else. So for all of you ungrateful SMU students, let me assure you: no other school has these opportunities.

I encourage you to pursue the opportunities like this that are available to your major. The cost might be daunting, and the time it takes might be inconvenient, but it would much more daunting and inconvenient to end up hating the career path you have chosen when you graduate.

Jessica Huseman is a sophomore Journalism and political science double major. She can be reached for comment at [email protected].