Crowded halls, slamming lockers, shoes squeaking on the floor. This is familiar. This is your normal. But it won’t be for long. It seems as if high school just started yesterday, but before you know it those smelly halls will be nothing but a memory, and a college dorm will take their place. Many of your peers appear to have it all together. They want to be nurses or teachers. They have their dream school all picked out and applied weeks before school even started. This might not be your reality.

It wasn’t mine.

I bounced around ideas of what I wanted to be in my head for years. I could be a doctor or a lawyer, a teacher, a veterinarian, an artist. The possibilities are endless. I would settle on a career for a few months, then change my mind only to change back in a few months. The reality was that I just had no idea what I wanted. Family members, church family, and teachers constantly asked where I wanted to go to school and what I wanted to be. I just had no answer!

I settled on a school and a major. I realized less than a month into college that I had chosen the wrong school, and possibly the wrong career as well. I got through that first semester and transferred to a school closer to home, the one that gave me the largest scholarship, again not bothering to look for the school that would make me the happiest. Here I am today, a junior in college, four majors and two and a half schools later, and I am still unsatisfied and unsettled with the path I am on. I fear I have made the wrong decision and it’s too late to turn back and still graduate in a reasonable time frame.

I have only one piece of advice for you: Don’t rush this decision!

You aren’t alone. You aren’t the only one that has no idea what their purpose in life is yet. Don’t force yourself down a career path that you aren’t sure is right for you. Don’t waste money going to school pursuing a career you are unsure of. Don’t make this decision because you feel you have to. You have other options.

Travel. See and experience the world and see where your heart takes you. Attend a trade school. It is less expensive than a university and you can explore your interests without breaking the bank. Work. Find a job. Bounce from job to job for a while until you find something that you like. It is perfectly acceptable to take a year or two off after high school before deciding to move on to college, in fact some countries require it! Instead do some soul searching. Learn who you are, what you like, and who you want to be.

If I could do it over again I’d go visit every college I could think of before even beginning to make this decision. I’d attend some sort of technical school while in high school (in my area it was called the tech center). I’d stop being so stubborn and look at the options around me.

I encourage you to do what I didn’t. Explore. Discover what you’re really passionate about and pursue it, no matter what that may be. There will be people that disagree with your decisions. It may be your family, your teachers, or your friends. Don’t let their disapproval make you doubt your decision, no matter what it may be. It is your life. Find what makes you happy and go for it!