Graduation is approaching, and you couldn’t be more excited about the wealth of opportunities lying ahead of you. Of course, there are bittersweet feelings, too, that come with ending high school and leaving your hometown, but you know that the best is yet to come.

And you probably have an idea of what that “best” is going to look like. Maybe it’s conquering every college class to get into your dream grad-school program someday. Maybe it’s making crazy memories at those college parties you’ve long dreamt of. Maybe it’s marrying your high school sweetheart someday.

I know it’s hard to believe, and you probably don’t want to believe it, but that plan you have so meticulously planned out probably won’t go that way.

I was in the exact same boat as you. Upon graduating high school, I knew exactly what I was going to do: study science, maintain a nearly-perfect GPA, get into a prestigious DPT program and eventually marry my then-boyfriend and live happily ever after.

Sure, there are plenty of people whose lives do go according to plan, and there isn’t anything wrong with that, but I’m here to tell you that the likelihood your plan will work out exactly as you envision it is slim. More importantly, I’m here to tell you that you’ll get so much more out of these next few years of college if you DON’T force yourself down a pre-determined path.

At your age, I was stubborn to give into the possibility of change. Comments like, “oh, you’ll probably switch your major a dozen times,” or “you probably won’t end up with him,” or “you’re going to change so much” incentivized me to fight change. In the first two years of college, I diligently stuck with a major I wasn’t that passionate about, obsessed over career planning and forced myself to stay in a relationship that made me miserable.

It took awhile for me to realize that despite having a well-thought-out plan, nothing about my life was actually figured out. Forcing myself down an ~extremely~ confined path and disregarding opportunities for change did nothing but take a toll on my mental health.

After having that epiphany, I realized that so much of my college experience could be enhanced by listening to myself and welcoming much-needed change into my life rather than pushing it away. I switched my major to something I love and ditched the things that I didn’t. After the experiences I've had in college thus far (which I would have never dreamt of in high school, by the way), I can confidently tell you that the person you’ll become over these next few years may very well be someone who is unfamiliar to you now. And that's perfectly OK.

Although you’ll gain so much academic knowledge from your upcoming college education, you’ll soon realize that the most valuable asset you’ll gain from this experience is the discovery of yourself, even if it may not seem like it yet.