Three years ago, as a senior in high school, I was dead set on being a music major.

It wasn’t a long shot. It actually seemed like a practical decision for me. I was, and still am, a singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. I was a member of the orchestra for seven years in middle and high school and took music theory and vocal studio. I even prepared six separate audition pieces for my prospective music programs: two on the violin, two on the viola, and two vocal arrangements. I just never got around to auditioning.

You may be wondering why, if I was so dedicated to music, I didn’t end up studying it and riding off into the sunset with a guitar strapped to my back, singing and living happily ever after.

The answer is surprisingly simple. After immersing myself in the difficult, particular, and often competitive world of classical music, I decided that simply put, my heart wasn’t in it.

I wasn’t down for the hours of dedicated practice that music majors partake in. (Music majors work. Hard.) I absolutely abhorred music theory, despite how it was a key to teaching myself how to play the piano in my study halls. I didn’t have enough patience for difficult Shostakovich, Bach, and Mendelssohn (whom I affectionately referred to as 'Never-end-delssohn") pieces. I preferred to stay on the calmer side of the circle of fifths. (AKA C Major, D Major, and G Major were my best friends.) To me, practicing scales were a bore, and I often got "voted off of the island" during orchestra rehearsals to go practice my part because I played out of tune.

I wasn't cut out for a major in music. It's one of those things where you either have the passion, skill and drive for it or you just ... don't. I was more into classical music as a hobby.

So ... I went to college undeclared.

It didn’t feel like it at the time, but it was probably the best decision that I could have made.

When I started college, I felt lost and directionless. Here I was at 17 years old, already under so much pressure to decide what I wanted to pursue as a lifelong career. It was scary to think that the Music Education path that I’d banked on for so long wasn’t quite working for me anymore. Nothing was working for me anymore. So many of my friends had applied and had been accepted to specific majors: criminal justice, nursing, engineering — and I was clueless.

It felt like everyone had an idea of where they were going and I was the exception to this rule.

Truthfully, in retrospect, though terrifying, going in undeclared gave me an amazing kind of freedom in my freshman year that "declared" students don’t usually get to experience. I started my college career by taking exclusively Common Core Classes. My college had me fill out a form before they registered me for my very first classes, asking which subjects I would like to try.

The possibilities were endless.

As a high school athlete, I’d considered a movement science major, so I took an exercise science class in my first semester of college. However, something about doing gym exercises at 7:30 in the morning didn't really sit well with me. Realizing that this was not my cup of tea (or Gatorade, if you want to be technical) I crossed that one off of my list.

I took women’s and gender studies, and enjoyed it greatly, but couldn’t see myself as an ethnic and gender studies major, though I did become more of a feminist than I already was, which I did not think was possible. I also became more aware of racial and gender issues, which is something I think everyone should take a class on regardless of their area of study. It's always a good thing to be mindful of the struggles that those around us are facing.

I took the first mandatory English composition class. Though I was one of the rare students who actually enjoyed the summer reading book, I deduced that I could not be an English major, since I realized that I would read so frequently that it might make me want to never read again. I even took a music-for-non-music-majors class, which to my merit, I did not fall asleep in.

My favorite class of my first semester was Intro to psychology. It was the game changer. I sat in class, eyes wide in wonderment each day, as we learned about theorists, about people, about conditions. It was all so interesting. I loved every second of it. Even after class, I found that psychology was all that I could think about.

It was all I talked about. I spent hours explaining sleep disorders to my roommates, and joked around about Freud with my friends. In my head, I (probably falsely) diagnosed everyone I knew with abnormal psychological impairments. (Note: this is a sometimes fun, but definitely unethical and usually misguided pastime.)

I had unexpectedly stumbled upon a brand new passion.

I’d taken a psychology course in high school and loved it, but it wasn’t until college that I really fell in love with it. I passed the college Intro course with flying colors, and subsequently decided that I wanted to dedicate my life to learning about humanity and individuals, their environments, and how they work together and separately. I wanted to use the knowledge I was yet to gather to help people. (How, I did not quite know, but it was an exciting discovery nonetheless.)

Midway through my second semester of college, I declared a double major in psychology and social work. I was 18 now, and high off of my readings of unconditional positive regard and social justice movements. I was dead set on becoming a therapist, somehow: whether it be with a master of psychology, or a license in social work somewhere far off in the distant future.

In my second semester in college, I began to hack away at the lengthy list of pre-requisites for formal acceptance into the BSW program that I had not already taken: sociology, government, macroeconomics, biology. I took Intro to social work, which was one of my favorite courses to this date, but also showed me that being a social worker was not for me.

Social work was just so applied, and was a tough profession. Something that I discovered about myself in the first year of college, is that I am the type of person who does not like to feel constrained. Social work felt constraining to me. I felt constrained by laws, by practices, by the idea of insurance companies looming in the background, and also constrained by the strictly defined career choices that I was faced with. The classes ahead seemed to be modeled after this structure.

In the second semester of my sophomore year, I blindly swapped my social work major for a communication major, without ever stepping foot in a communication class.

...Plot twist!

This was a risky endeavor, and I would not suggest jumping into a major without first testing the waters, but it worked out for me. (Even if it almost gave my mom a heart attack.) As it turned out, I felt nearly as much enthusiasm for my communication classes as I did for psychology. In fact, the two subjects overlap quite a bit, making me feel like the genius I never was.

In the first semester of my junior year, I got involved in the radio station at my school, as a DJ hosting a weekly show. I fell in love again, and realized that I dreamed of a career in Broadcasting. I became a music director for the station, and now take pride in opening and listening press kits, and helping to decide which songs should play on the radio.

That brings me to now.

I’m 20, and currently in my second semester of my junior year, the sixth semester of college. I am a double major in psychology and communication. Not music. Not social work.

I am focusing on counseling and public relations. I am a teaching assistant in the same Introductory psychology class that inspired me to pursue psychology in the first place, two and a half years ago. The radio station has become my second home. I am very happy with where I am in my studies and college life, and am excited to see where my double major will take me career wise in the future.

I got here by trial and error. I got here because career paths I thought I would thrive in (and maybe could have, who knows) didn’t fit into my life in quite the right way, despite how I had imagined they would. I got here because I once felt lost and undecided. I got here by letting go of other dreams. I got here by struggling with a class or two. I got here by exploring, and being open, and free. I got here by getting to know myself better.

I got to be where I am today because I went in undeclared, and I was not afraid to change my major until it fit exactly who I was, and who I wanted to become.

My advice to you, reader, is to follow your heart. Don’t sit in classes that you don’t enjoy just because the promise a big paycheck someday. Find what speaks to you now and run with it. Sometimes, you may run in circles, (I certainly did) but if you know who you are and what you are capable of, and you trust yourself, you will always end up where you’re supposed to be.

Edit your life if it isn’t going the way you want it to. Take that class you always thought you wanted to take, but thought against. Try new things before you rule them out.

You never know where you will end up in life, but since you’re here enjoying the wonderful opportunity of college, chances are, you’re going to end up just fine.

“I've learned that making a 'living' is not the same thing as 'making a life'.”

― Maya Angelou