Dear College Students, Are You Undecided?

Up until last week, I always had a major. I was an international business major, finance major, psych major on the pre-medicine track… and now (finally) I am exactly where I should have been when I started college: undecided. I think there is too much pressure as a high school student to have a designated path about what you want to study, be when you 'grow up' and essentially spend the rest of your life doing. As an 18-year-old, I really feel like I tried to pin myself down to a major so that I had a set path to follow and something to look towards. This is probably very conventional and I know tons of people at school who have their minds made up about what they want to study.

Even though I am super organized, in my experience, it is ok not to have a set path. It definitely sounds nice to say that you are studying to be a doctor, accountant, nurse, teacher, etc. from the minute that you step onto campus… but life happens. Up until last week, I was a psych major on the pre-med track. It was so relieving to say that I was going to be a doctor and I was making myself proud. But, as I said earlier, the classes I was taking just weren't interesting to me. I was not enjoying biology or chemistry. I was not happy. I think in order to say what you do like, you have to first identify the topics that you are not interested in. In this way, I really feel that everything happens for a reason. In this case, I think we enroll in specific courses for a reason and we have general requirements from our schools. I understand the general education requirements now and I appreciate the fact that they exist.

After rethinking my major again and having a really scared feeling that I do not like my major or classes I am taking, I changed around my schedule and received some guidance instead of just jumping into courses that seem to follow my major. Now, though I am still technically a psychology major, I am happily taking my general requirements for the College of Arts and Sciences and feel so relived.

On that note, I truly believe that everything happens for a reason. It is important to take a step back and let life take its course. I am loving my somewhat less stressful schedule right now because I get to have the ability to take more time to study to do well in of my courses, work, enjoy campus, stay organized and actually be involved in the clubs that you signed up for.

For all of those who are undecided at the moment, my advice to you is that it is ok. It is ok not to have an undesignated path right now. Take time to figure things out and they say that everything else will come.