Life can often be equated to a puzzle where once you think you have found the missing piece, there is always yet another missing piece to be found. This is one of the most important things that I have learned this year, as it has been one of the most transformative ones of my life, as I learned what I like and what I don’t like, which have finally given my life some type of direction and attainable goal towards the future. But most importantly, I have found myself, and you can too!

For as long as I can remember, I have always loved film, in fact all my high school years have been filled with memories of running to the movies after school with my family to catch the latest foreign or independent film in a far-off theater. After graduating high school, I attended Nassau Community College as a liberal arts major, wishing desperately that the school offered a film major, but alas they did not. So I figured the liberal arts major would be the best alternative since it would allow me to take a variety of courses while fulfilling courses that would be required for a film major at any school I would transfer to. At least this is what everybody told me, but I constantly found myself asking why would I need to know pre-Calculus or Biology in order to study films? I felt like I was wasting my precious time that could be used instead to fulfill my life’s mission to be a master of all things cinema.

So I trudged through those three years at NCC and when I was nearing graduation, I rejoiced in the fact that I could now base my entire college search on which schools had the best “film culture” and were closest to the best art houses, something now looking back I realize was very silly and immature. Anyway, I soon discovered that Hofstra University was the best choice for me, so I committed with a major in Film Studies and Production. I now felt like I was connected to something meaningful and important. However, upon closer examination of the courses Hofstra offered I realized that they were not exactly what I was looking for in a major. I had chosen Hofstra based on its prestige, excellent communications department, proximity to home, and most importantly while most other film programs were either focused in film studies or film production, Hofstra had both in one major. I reasoned that this major was perfect for me because while I was primarily interested in film studies, film production would always be there for me if I was interested in dabbling in the more practical side of it.

However, it didn’t work that way, you are required to take the film production courses which makes up a majority of the major and the film studies courses are more of a supplement to these courses so that these aspiring young filmmakers will have something to inform their own films by way of studying the greats. I was dismayed to learn this because Hofstra is such a good school and now it was not going to be able to meet my educational needs. Upon speaking to my advisor, I soon found out that only two film production courses were required for the major, so I decided to try the major out for a semester, taking only the film studies courses for that first semester. Towards the end and after the semester, while the courses were very interesting and stimulated me, they also did something else to me: they made me think long and hard about my life choices and the direction in which my life was going. Is this really all worth it? At its core, I just loved watching movies and writing about them, I had no intention of holding cameras on film sets or doing anything in film production for that matter, in fact I hate physical work. So, do I really want to spend all this money and time committing myself to a hobby? If this effort isn’t to start a career in this field, this is in fact a massive waste of time.

I think I was just in love with the idea of being “in film.” If you were to ask me back then, “What do you plan to do with your degree?” I would probably answer with something like, “I’m not sure, something in the film industry.” Yeah, not very specific. This is because I was not very grounded, I didn’t have specific career goal, I think it was because I had found something I was very passionate about, and for so long I was denied pursuing it and now that I finally did indeed have an opportunity to go after it. I jumped at it, without putting much thought into it. Yes, of course, family and friends advised me not to pursue film, but I feel like this was a lesson that I really needed to learn for myself because if I would have just listened to them I actually would have never learned the lesson at all, I would have never had the personal realization and transformation that I had. However, they did always suggest something quite important: they always said “Jake, you’re a very good writer, you should pursue something in writing.” I always blew off their advice for some reason though, thinking, "I like writing but my real life’s mission is to do something in film." Now that I knew I no longer wanted to pursue film, I decided that maybe their advice had some merit.

Now, on the hunt for a new major, I took their advice into consideration: I discovered that when pursuing a college degree, the real crucial thing to take into consideration is that you need to a) Do something that you are good at and b) Do something that you like. A needs to come before B but they both need to be present, because if you just have B, then it is just a hobby or an interest because nobody is going to pay you to just do something that you like, you need to be good at it too, you need to have a skill, and A+B=Happiness. In my case, nobody was going to pay me to watch movies (B) but they would/could pay me to analyze and write about them (A), which is what I was doing in my film studies courses but as I was getting older and starting to recognize this “just a hobby” and “A+B=H” schema, I also learned something about maturity. I started to discover that my interest in film was fading, I no longer woke up eager to check Rotten Tomatoes first thing in the morning, or check online every Tuesday what movies were playing at the multiplex next week. It wasn’t what my world centered around anymore. It taught me that while I thought I would always be “Mr. Film," it wasn’t the case, it taught me that I’m not always going to be the same person that I was in high school, I will change, I will mature, my interests will change.

So, it was official, I was going to major in something writing-related. But what? The first thing that came to mind was English, after all I always remember doing a lot of writing in English in high school and college composition classes. However, I soon learned that if I were to major to major in English, I would mainly be writing about literature, and very old literature at that, including Shakespeare. But I felt that’s not really what I was into. The type of writing that I’m into is stuff precisely like this very article: deep, personal, analytic essays. But there was no major like that. The only other writing major that I could think of was Journalism. I didn’t know much about journalism, only that the type of articles I would read in magazines would be classified as journalism and occasionally I would see an opinion piece in these magazines, and I thought that was sort of cool--the idea of being able to voice your opinions and having millions of people read them and in a way connect with you. I never saw that in a Shakespeare book, so journalism it was! This whole process was very scary and intimidating.

The feeling of sitting down in my first class of my new major, News Writing and Reporting, was a combination of both refreshment and intimidation. I soon encountered a similar conundrum as with film studies/film production. Everything was based on news writing! This wasn’t what I signed up for! I wanted to write critical analytical essays. Every time I heard or read the word “news," I cringed. I soon came to terms that this was just the remnants of the same immature attitude that I had with the film major, because nobody would pay me to write that stuff. At least with this major, it would hopefully give me a steady paycheck for my writing. So, I went through the next few months in a state of constant ambivalence having the attitude of, “Yeah, this is my major, but I’m not really sure if it’s 100 percent what I want to do, but it’s better than film.” After a few months and really starting to get into the swing of my courses, I started to appreciate more and more that even if this is not the type of writing I want to do, this is still pretty cool! This is because little did I know that Journalism combined all of my interests and hobbies in the best way!

I am so happy that I was able to find myself academically and in turn personally. Now I would like to recap some things I learned in my journey to help you find yourself.

First, you need to learn what you want to do with your life for yourself. People can give advice and think what you are doing is not right for you. But you need to do what you think is right for you for the moment. In the end, they may be right, but you need to realize that they were right for yourself because if you just listen to them outright, you won’t learn anything. This is because you need to fail in order to succeed, figure out what you don’t like, what you’re not good at before you can figure out you do like and what you are good at.

Second, recognize what your skills are and then pursue them because if you are doing something that you are good at, you will never fail. Then try to find how your interests match these skills and how you could use them in the future in order to make you happy.

Next, take a chance on something! If something really piques your interests and feels right, go for it! For example, in my case, changing my major to Journalism.

Fourth, don’t be afraid if you know something is NOT right for you. Get out of it right away! Don’t just stick with something because it’s what other people think it’s what you should do. Lastly, nothing is ever exactly what you expect, as in my case with both the film and journalism majors, and when this happens, you have two choices: You either reject it and try to find something better or embrace it. I hope these tips and my experiences have helped you on your journey to find yourself. It’s not an easy one, but it is certainly worth it!