>> TOM PYDEN: I come from New Jersey and I
came to Miami not knowing a single person.
And I thought that when I'd come in here ... I
chose pre-med as my major because I thought
I wanted to be a doctor.
My mom wanted me to be a doctor.
My sister is in med school right now, so ... it
just wasn't for me, and I was just not prepared
for it.
So I spent a lot of my time, first two years
of college, switching from major to major.
I switched around to about four different
majors (four or five different majors).
And finally I just said, you know, I'm going
to go undecided, which I should have done
right when I came in.
And I thought I needed to have a major when
I came into school.
I thought I needed to pick one out.
I didn't realize that I had other options
beforehand.
So I decided to go to the [Exploring] Majors
Fair that they offered at Shriver.
And I went in there.
And I talked to a friend beforehand, and they
said, "Well, you like the outdoors.
You like rocks.
Why don't you try geology?"
So I went into the Majors Fair.
I went straight to the geology table.
And I sat down with one of the professors
here, and he spoke about all of the research
that he's done: the summer research that he
does out West and how there are so many opportunities
to just go around the world and to see a lot
of different stuff.
There are trips to the Caribbean to do research
on the beaches down there and coral.
He really sold it to me.
Just knowing that I had the opportunity to
do all these different things with something
in the sciences, which I already liked.
