When I was 17-years-old, the only thing that was on my mind was college. I was ready to move on to the next chapter and start preparing for the next phase of my life. I knew I wanted a career that would make me a lot of money and I wanted it to be impressive, one that would make someone's eyebrows raise and say, "Wow! I wish I could do that."
When I was 18-years-old, I decided that I wanted to go into veterinary medicine, with a specialization in neuroscience/neurological disorders. I had always love animals, I loved learning about the brain. Why not combine the two? I mean, my whole life I had been praised for being smart and many people expected me to do exceptional things because of that. So, I decided to major in neuroscience with a pre-veterinary track. I came to college as a bright-eyed, naive freshman who thought she had it all figured out.
Here's why it was a mistake.
When you enter college, you don't delve into any major specific classes until late in your sophomore year. Prior to that, it's mostly your general education classes that you're taking and an intro class or two.
During that time, you get the true experience of your major with the major-specific organizations you choose to join.
When I came to college, I joined the pre-veterinary club for my university. While it was fun being able to interact with the animals, it was then that I realized how behind I was in comparison to my classmates. Even as a freshman, the other freshman had a significant advantage.
And it was because I decided that I wanted to be a veterinarian on a whim and with naive intentions. It wasn't something I truly wanted to do, and I was clouded with greed and the belief that I could handle it.
When I was 19-years-old, I realized that it wasn't feasible or fair to me (or to my parents who were paying for me to major in something I didn't want to do anymore) to continue with this path. I began to explore other career opportunities related to writing because that was where my talents lied, and I am extremely blessed that I was able to find the world of public relations, one I didn't even know was so large because I genuinely can't even imagine me being a veterinarian now.
If you're a senior in high school, don't make the same mistakes I did. Who you are at 17 is not who you will be at 19, your opinions, values, and personality will experience a shift. The fact that society pressures us to have it all figured out by 18 is ridiculous. I mean, something like 80 percent of college students change their major while they're in college, anyway.
You don't have to have it all figured out right away.
There are millions of careers you don't even know about yet, so take your time to learn about all of your options, or at least as many as you can. There is absolutely no shame in entering college as an undecided major, I wish I had done it and so do a lot of other people. It exists to help you figure it out by exposing you to all your options. It exists for a reason.
It's because you don't truly know what you want to do until you're excited about going to class. If you dread chemistry and biology, why would you want to be a doctor?
