Relief flooded me as soon as I left Catherine’s office. It’s the same type of relief that I feel every time I leave the advising office. The kind where I am actually able to breathe; that makes me think that I will be okay no matter what happens. I have yet again changed my plan.

If you’re thinking that you need a set plan to get through life, if you’re like me –one of those people that thrives on schedules and knowing your next step, then you get it. I’m a product of a immigrant, first-generation, low-income mindset. I worked hard to go to college so I can get a steady full-time job and work for the rest of my long-ish life. A large part of my familial mindset is that I need to study something that would be considered “profitable” in the world outside of my precious Columbia bubble. Whatever I decide to do should be enough to take care of myself and help provide for my family, present and future.

As a first-generation student attending a very prestigious university, I know that a "profitable" degree isn't really just economics, engineering, or a hard science. A "profitable" degree is a product of something you love to study. If you do something you love and you work hard for, then you can work in any field. But my mind automatically reverts back to what I used to know when I am unsure. It reverts back to the mindset that thinks I have to study a hard science or finance to live a successful life. Or else, once I graduate, I’ll be left on the streets, a disappointment to my family and myself.

It’s the mindset and the words I hear from extended family members when I’m home, when I tell them my declared major is English. The first thing they assume is that I will become a teacher or I’ll just be unemployed. So I always tack on “I’m on a pre-med track, as well.” Just to make them think that I have an actual path in life and to help myself avoid their scrutiny through yet another family gathering.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved and still love the idea of going to medical school. For the past three years, I worked at an optometrist office. It was my first job. And while all throughout high school I denied my pre-med destiny, I thought that my job at a doctor’s office in LensCrafters sealed my fate as to what I was supposed to do. When both my parents got incredibly sick this year, I thought that I would never want to feel this vulnerable in a hospital setting again. There were so many signs that made the idea of medical school seem so appealing that didn’t just include my incredible obsession with Grey’s Anatomy.

I love the idea of medical school, but let’s be honest, medical school doesn’t love the idea of me. I struggled through the 3 sets of science courses I’ve taken. After my second biology exam, I realized science and I weren’t the best of friends. We were in a try-to-love/hate relationship and I have been dragging my feet throughout the entirety of it. After that second test a few weeks ago, I realized that I needed to make a clean break or else I’d just be in an unhappy relationship.

It isn’t the practice of medicine that I adore, it is the patient care. It is my ability to resonate with people that I like a whole lot more than my ability to figure out the Krebs cycle. (If I’m being honest, I still don’t know what it is).

I had to P/D/F my biology class. My ability does not lie in the memorization of the periodic table, mechanics equations, or DNA structure. While all that stuff is interesting, I was drowning in my classes. I can’t remember a time when I had a genuinely good experience in my science classes at Columbia. There isn’t a science professor that knows my name or is willing to have a conversation with me in the same way as my English and other humanities professors.

My interest died along with my ability to keep my eyes open when I look at my textbooks. My interest died the moment I started being afraid to call my parents to explain to them that yet another exam went awry. I couldn’t handle the disappointment in my Dad’s voice and the fake hope in my mom’s. The numbers didn’t express my interest. And if you know the application to medical school, most of it is about the numbers you produce. My numbers aren’t anything to brag about.

In my time sitting in Catherine’s office, I reflected on the things that I actually am good at. My position as VP New Member Education within my sorority, my ability to make people feel better once they’ve had a conversation with me, my patience when I tutor high school students. My interest always lay in the the struggles of first-generation students, in the education policy of New York City, in my ability to empathize and sympathize with the people in my life in a way that others are incapable.

I am changing my path again. Or I'm just going full circle to what I knew when I first came in to Columbia. I am a junior in college and I’m still trying to figure it out. The big secret? So is everyone else, no matter what stage of life they are in. Life, unfortunately, cannot be planned to a T. You have to move along with it. You have to find what works for you. I’m still searching. And for those of you out there that are still freaking out, try to not let it stress you out too much. Life always works out in the end.