Dear Those Questioning My Major,

If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me “what do you want to do with your major," I could probably drop out of college. Not that I would want to drop out, because I am majoring in something I love more than anything in life.

I don’t know when the love for what I’m studying started, or what exactly pushed me to it. I truly think it was destiny, as cheesy as it sounds. I’m not one of those people who’s always known what they want to do with their lives, (and let’s be real here, I am still a bit unsure), but that’s okay. When I found the subject I am now studying, it was like something I had never felt before. I had never had this much passion, borderline obsession for something in my life. I wanted to know everything, and that passion has stuck with me. It changed the way I thought, it changed the way I viewed the world, it changed so much of my life that it is sometimes hard to think about who I was before I found what I wanted to do. This major made me want to throw caution to the wind and just go for it, despite the job statistics after graduation.

I’m not going to lie to you either, I have been persuaded away from the major I am now. I came to college and majored in something I liked. But that’s the thing, I just liked it. What was even worse, I only liked some aspects of it, not even the whole thing. And for a while, I was fine with that. Sure, I would be making money, I would get to travel, I would have job security no matter where I went. But if I was going to do something for the rest of my life, why was I going to go to a job I “liked?" Why not go to work and do something I love?

In my dream major (my current major), I can do all those things. Go to a job I love, get to travel, meet people of varying backgrounds, make money and most importantly, make a difference. People should talk about their major the same way they talk about pizza, their significant other, their dog, anything else they love. Why settle for mediocrity? So yes, I’m probably not going to be making six figures or more a year, and all these other things that I think too many people use to define a “good major."

But no dream is complete without some sort of struggle. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from Art History, it’s that. Michelangelo hated the Sistine Chapel, Vincent Van Gogh never sold a painting in his lifetime, artists have had their works rejected by their own government. But these names have outlasted their own lifetimes, their works are still with us today, and their stories live on.

Your questioning of my major isn’t going to stop me, it’s only going to make me work harder.

Xoxox,