Months before starting college, I knew I wanted to major in creative writing. My heart was set on it, and nothing was going to change that. Even after looking through the list of majors my college offers, creative writing was the only one that spoke to me. I was a writer, and everyone knew it.
I had countless family, friends, acquaintances, and even strangers ask me what my plans were for college. "I'm going to major in creative writing," I would always say with confidence. When they asked me why I decided to major in that, I would say, "Writing is what I like to do. It's what I'm best at, and I want to make a career out of it."
I considered myself a writer, so being a creative writing major made sense, right? That's what I thought at the time, but over the course of my freshman year, I realized majoring in creative writing wasn't for me. I found that I'm a much better fit in my school's political economy department.
Even though I started out my first school year so sure I would be a creative writing major, I started having very unexpected second thoughts a couple of months in. But I also began to feel pressured to remain in my major because of what other people would tell me. One day while walking to class my history professor caught up to me and asked, "You're an English major, right?" I said yes, unsure of why she would ask that. Then, it hit me. It's because I'm a good writer. Even my English professor would tell me "You're a really great writer. I hope you stay a creative writing major."
That semester I was also unwillingly put into a political economy course called International Politics. My whole class schedule was put together by someone else, and I didn't like the class. Rather, I didn't want to like it. But as the course progressed, I ended up enjoying it. For some reason, all the big words I learned from the class like "hegemony" weren't so intimidating, and they left my brain thinking and challenged. Surprisingly, I found it easier to come up with theses for that class than I did my English class. But wasn't I supposed to be good at writing? Wasn't that supposed to be my "talent"?
Writing still is my talent, but not in the way I once thought. The second semester of my freshman year I took a literature course and another political economy course, this time willingly. It had been years since I got anything lower than a B on an essay, but that changed when I took that literature class. I received a C on my first one for the class. Writing about literature was hard, but I thought I was supposed to enjoy it since I classified myself as a writer. However, writing short essays for my government class came much easier to me.
I spent weeks pondering, trying to decide whether or not I should give up my title as a "Creative Writing Major" and change it to "Political Economy Major." I ended up proudly accepting the latter. I don't know where this major will take me, and I still don't know what I'll do with it. But for now, I feel like it's the right decision. I learned that just because I'm no longer majoring in the humanities doesn't mean I'm not a writer. I'm still a writer, I just changed my major — and that's okay. Who knows? Maybe it'll change again.
