I get excited whenever someone asks me what I’m going to do after I graduate. I like to watch their reaction when I say, “I’m going to be a trucker.”

There’s always a brief but telltale pause, then they all say the same thing: “Oh! … You should write a book!”

I tell them I might, but quietly think their reaction is merely a sign of a bigger social stereotype: If you get an academic degree, you have to do something inherently academic.

I’ll be getting my bachelor’s degree in June, and the fact that I want to be a trucker can only be reconciled if I also write a book about it. Why in the heck am I getting a bachelor’s degree anyway, some ask.

I always go back to what my dad told me when I went through the inevitable “what-am-I-going-to-major-in?” crisis freshman year.

You go to college to learn how to think, he said, not to get a major. I think I’ve finally embraced that. You don’t have to do anything in your life that has anything to do with your college major. Your degree is just a certificate in advanced problem-solving.

The problems I want to solve the most right now include how to change that flat tire and finding the best truck stop. And to me, that’s enough.

I might write about it — book or otherwise — simply because I’m a writer. But I don’t feel any pressure to justify my choice with academics. I just want 18 wheels and the open road, and I’ll be happy. If I’m not, I’ll find something else that makes me happy.

I value my education more than anything else I’ve done in my life, not because I can now go be a journalist, but because I have learned how to think, and I can apply that to anything I choose.

So no matter what your major is, a profession that doesn’t require a college degree might actually be what you’re meant to do — and you don’t have to write a book about it.

As for me, I’m going to drive trucks, and I’m not going to let a bachelor’s degree stop me.

Reach Editor-in-Chief Sarah Jeglum at editor@dailyuw.com.