Don't know what you want to do with your life? That's ok. You're in good company.
I graduated high school without the slightest clue to what I wanted to do with my life. As do most high school graduates know, we're supposed to have a plan of action for college and a career; I did not. Hell, I still don't know what my life has in store for me.
I've been in college for almost five years now, and it took four and a half years to realize what I'm good at and what I want to do. I don't necessarily regret the choices I've made, I just wish I had made my most recent one sooner.
When I started college, I was convinced by friends and family to pursue Graphic Design on the sole fact that I was familiar with Adobe Photoshop. What they didn't realize was this: I have a slight color deficiency and my yearning to do design for a living was absent. Don't get me wrong, it was a fun hobby and it's something I still practice, but it's not something that I would like to be permanent.
Isn't that what college is for, though? Testing your skills and knowledge? "Oh I think I might want to go into the criminal justice system, so I'll take some criminology classes." "I bet I'd be a great statistician; how about I take some math and economics classes?"—college is one big experiment that is advertised in the worst way possible.
The last thing I ever thought I'd want to be is a writer: middle school and high school were years when writing was the most tedious and tiresome task I had. My mind was set on finding a job where the last thing I had to do was write several paragraphs on a page that revolved around a topic I had next to no interest in.
I've switched my major twice; I started with Graphic Design, then switched to Liberal Studies, and then I recently switched to Multimedia.
As much as I detested Liberal Studies the further I went into it, it had one silver lining: I took two creative writing classes. One class was Creative Fiction and the other was Advanced Creative Nonfiction, and both showed a new avenue of writing I hadn't experienced before— my own.
Once I found out and studied more about the Multimedia degree at my school, I realized I should have studied it right off the bat. I grew up with cameras, computers, and taught myself the Adobe Creative Suite a few years back. In addition to that, I realized I get to use my own skills in writing to further myself in what I want to do, which is film.
You're not going to know right off the bat what you want to do nor will you be sure that what you do will guarantee you happiness. It'll take you a while. Some don't realize it till after they graduate. Don't feel defeated if you're in your fourth year and aren't graduating anytime soon. You're not alone.
There's a great video from the Steve Harvey Show where Harvey brought on a guest talk about the keys to happiness. Some don't necessarily apply to all of us, but we can all take a lot of it and apply it to our own lives.
