By Janeane Lage > William Jewell College

John Sloan Dickey, a former president of Dartmouth College, once said, “The college undergraduate is a lot of things—many of them as familiar, predictable and responsible as the bounce of a basketball, and others as startling (and occasionally disastrous) as the bounce of a football.”

College is our time to explore, learn from those around us, and redefine ourselves over and over again. The freedom and range of options can be intimidating, but as these five students show, you can take any number of paths to the end.

Kevin Kirk - University of Maryland

Sophomore Kevin Kirk is an inspiration to undecided majors everywhere, actively pursuing a career despite having yet to declare a major. Instead, he’s pursuing life outside the classroom by participating in four business-related clubs including Hinman CEOS and the Maryland Undergraduate Society of Entrepreneurs. He even runs his own retail company, A Slice of Paradise, which sells fashionable accessories at women’s sporting events. He started the company in high school selling hemp bracelets at his sister’s lacrosse tournaments; it has now grown to a 20×10 booth setup with four product lines.

After Kirk won the most popular business vote at a contest for young entrepreneurs sponsored by Under Armor CEO Kevin Plank, Plank personally offered Kirk an internship—one of 50 positions among a field of 2,500 applicants—because he was so impressed with Kirk’s passion and business model. “I was going to inquire about interning anyway,” Kirk explains, “because I had looked into the summer internship online, but it said that only rising juniors, seniors and graduates would be accepted—no exceptions. So he simply asked me to intern for UA before I could ask him.”

Kirk’s initiative earned him more than just an internship. It earned him a mentor. “I definitely look up to Kevin because, beyond having a lot in common, he simply has created an incredible business, and I hope to aspire to do the same in my future.”

Allison Fox - Indiana University

If you met Allison Fox today, you would be surprised to find this senior was once a shy and unpopular teen from the small town of Sarasota, FL. It wasn’t until she entered college that Fox found her niche and broke out of her shell by taking on a major leadership position. She began her college career wanting to explore her options, but after taking some business courses that she wasn’t fond of, she rediscovered her roots: retail—her family’s business for generations. It looks like the tradition won’t stop with her.

Now majoring in apparel merchandising and minoring in business, Fox has channeled her passion for retail to help her grow in ways that she never would have expected.  The shy outsider is now a community leader, the vice president of Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE), a service learning club where students form teams on their campuses and develop community outreach projects.

Says Fox, “Being in SIFE has made me a very good leader, and a lot stronger person than I used to be… passion is the key to all I do. Passion for what I study, for what I do, and the community I give back to.”

Eleanor Seavey - George Washington University

While many of us spend our first years in college floundering from department to department, Eleanor Seavey knew her calling as early as high school. After spending her junior year studying in Reggio Emilia, Italy, immersed in the local high school, rich Italian culture, and fabulous food, she emerged with a thirst for the exotic.

“I met people in my program from all over the world,” Seavey says, “and the political, historical, and cultural knowledge that I gained upon those meetings compelled me to search for a major that included those disciplines.”

She settled on combining an international affairs major with a concentration on Europe and Eurasia with a minor in Italian literature for good measure. Outside the classroom, she’s worked as a research and administrative assistant for Pulitzer Prize-nominee and human rights advocate Kevin Bales, one of the world’s leading experts on modern slavery and the president of Free the Slaves, an American nonprofit.

Seavey states that her major encompasses a variety of subjects, including anthropology, geography, political science, statistics, history and economics. “That flexibility allows my ideas to change as I grow more as a student and a citizen of the world.”