Just let me get one thing straight right away. I don't hate my school. I still think it is a great institution and, overall, I have had a wonderful four years there.

But college is not all about having fun and meeting new people. At some point, you hopefully come to realize why you're there - you chose this school because it seemed like the best place for you to earn a degree.

For me, I chose Concordia because I knew I wanted to be a teacher, and was certain that it was the right place for me to learn how to do this.

It wasn't until halfway through my junior year that I really began to second-guess the choice I had made. Up until then, I had enjoyed my classes (for the most part), had made some lifelong friendships, and learned for the first time what independence felt like.

As the year went on, it became more and more clear to me that I was unprepared. I didn't feel like my classes had given me everything I needed to be a teacher-in-training when my training was already mostly completed.

During the spring semester of junior year, my classes were more education-based, which was a good thing. However, I was frustrated because I had not realized until this point that I did not know enough about teaching.

How is it that I could have gotten as far as my sixth semester in college and never even written a lesson plan? A good number of my classes before this had been English or literature based; I had only taken two education courses up until this point.

What really frustrates me about all of this is that I had come to this revelation too late in my college career. Even if I had truly wanted to transfer to a different school, it would not have made sense. Who knows what kind of hoops I would have had to jump through to make sure I completed all the course requirements in time for graduation.

Now that I am into my last semester of school, and have begun my student teaching experience, I've just had to deal with things as I get to them.

Again, I want to emphasize how much I still appreciate my school for all that it is. All of the professors I have worked with are always more than willing to help their students succeed and get the most out of their educations.

I don't blame my professors for my frustrations about the program. I understand that there are many factors that need to be taken into consideration; things are rarely as simple as they seem.

If I had been aware of the timeline of all my courses and sooner realized the imbalance between English and education classes, I could have better reconsidered my options.

So if you are someone who is about to begin college or have even already begun, I would strongly urge you to look into the requirements for your major and meet with a campus advisor to discuss the details.

Your education is not something to take lightly. It might have been too late for me when I came to my troubling realization, but I hope my story can help incoming freshmen really consider all their options and what it means to choose a school.