Dear Undecided College Students,

I want to start this off with a statement. It is perfectly ok for you to be getting ready to start college and still be undecided. In fact, it might be one of the best things that have ever happened to you. You have no idea where the next four years, or more depending on what you end up doing, are going to take you. Who knows, you may end up studying abroad in Europe, you may end up interning at a company you’ve never even heard of, or you might end up switching majors four times before you find the right fit.

I am here to tell you that it will be ok, and you will figure out where you truly belong with a little help along the way.

I am currently in the Exploratory Studies program at Purdue University, and in all honesty, I thought it was going to be a waste of my time. Boy, let me tell you how wrong I was.

Yes, there are days where I wish I had picked a major and then I would not have to take some of the personality tests that are a part of the Exploratory curriculum, but then I look back at how much I have learned about myself in the last few months and I would not change it for the world.

First-semester senior year, when I was filling out all of my college applications, I had a plan. It had been set in stone for as long as I could remember. I was going to apply to Purdue for Engineering, wait a few months for a letter in the mail, and then go to school. No other option even crossed my mind. Well, life threw me a curveball the third weekend in October. I was not accepted into Purdue’s College of Engineering, along with about ten other students I had talked to at my high school.

I was shocked. I had the grades, I had the test scores, and I was involved with multiple organizations throughout high school, but I still did not get into my dream school. I looked into what my options were, and found I could reapply. So, I sat down with my parents and decided to reapply through the Exploratory Studies program. I waited a few weeks, and I received my acceptance letter. I was still skeptical about going in undecided, and I was afraid I would get nothing out of EDPS 105, the required class that all Exploratory Studies students have to take.

My student orientation day (or STAR day at Purdue) came along, and I was a bundle of nervous energy. That was the day I would choose my first semester classes and meet my new advisor, and Exploratory Studies teacher, Ashlyn. I am a perpetual planner, and I had messed around with the scheduling system before coming on campus, so I had a pretty good idea of what classes I wanted to take.

Ashlyn managed to put me completely at ease with my undecided status. After all, almost every college student takes the same intro level classes their first year. We talked about what I had been thinking about and where my head was at major wise, then planned my schedule accordingly. I left my meeting even more excited!

Those last few weeks of summer went by in a blur and the next thing I knew I was moving into my dorm room. Most of my floor was made up of other students who were also undecided, and it was nice to know that I was not alone. My Exploratory Studies class went off without a hitch, and soon I found myself completing different personality tests. Over the course of the semester, we took the Strong Interest Inventory, the Myers Briggs, the Self-Directed Search, a Forced-Choice Values test, StrengthsFinder, and the Five-Factor Inventory test.

Each one gave me a new way of looking at myself and my different interests. While discussing our results, Ashlyn always made it a point to remind us all that our results did not mean there was a ‘perfect major’ that these tests were pointing to, they were just there to help us see where our strengths and interests lie.

About halfway through the semester, I was browsing through Purdue’s list of majors and one I had never even heard of found its way to the top of my list. I started to do some more research and found it even lined up with a lot of my results from the various personality tests.

Around the time where I was starting to figure my own life out, all of my friends who had come in with a set plan were starting to doubt their decisions. I ended up using most of what I had learned in EDPS 105 to help them realize it was ok and to set up a meeting with their own advisor to figure out a new game plan.

I am getting close to my second semester, and I will still be considered undecided. However, I have realized had declared a major I could very well be learning material I have no interest in. I have since realized that before college I never asked myself what I wanted to do, instead always saying something I thought I should do.

So, if you are getting ready for college, or have graduated and still have no idea what you want to be when you grow up and are undecided, it is perfectly ok. You may soon realize that you will never set foot on the path you thought you were meant to be on.