“What should I major in?” is often a question that holds the same weight as “what is the meaning of life?” for the average college student. Unfortunately, it’s a question that can be debilitating for some students.
After one completes his or her high school degree, there are multitude of options open: a liberal arts school, a trade school, the peace corps, the army, entry level jobs or even taking a gap year. Once a beginning student chooses a school to go to there has already been a great deal of decision making that has been done. At each step of college decision making process, there is more control lost and sometimes more uncertainty about the future. While choosing a school puts into motion what the college student will be doing next, it does not guarantee the success of that choice or that it was the right choice. Still, not making a decision could be worse.
Part of the reason for this fear is because of American culture. In a class called “Intercultural Communication” at my university, we study the many variables that make up culture. Part of that is how much cultures avoid uncertainty. High uncertainty avoidance cultures careful plan for the future so that their future can be as certain as possible. Low uncertainty avoidance cultures don’t care as much. Life happens and that’s just how it is.
On the scale, America leans towards being a high uncertainty avoidance culture. We are a goal oriented society that has produced many great entrepreneurs, but also does not allow for a great deal of uncertainty. This is most apparent in the stories of homeless people in Chicago who tell me that one of their biggest fears include not knowing where life will lead them next.
This high uncertainty avoidance culture clashes with another culture in America: the culture of limitless possibilities. As children, many now college aged kids were told that they could do anything they wanted to do and be anything they wanted to be.
But it’s false. Life in America moves quickly. Young people must adhere to a schedule if they want to survive in the business world. With the monochromatic way in which time and scheduling functions in America, individuals who were told that they could do or be anything experience a great deal of cognitive dissonance and it can be draining.
Because of this unfortunate circumstance, sometimes the best way for college students to be successful is to let go of plans instead of making more. Not that there should not be a schedule, but college students should make peace with the mystery that is an uncertain future.
To hard working, goal oriented people, this may sound like lunacy and a sure way to fail at life. I think it is important to remember that our goals are best achieved by figuring out why we want to achieve them as opposed to exactly how we want to achieve them.
As Viktor Frankl said in his book, Man’s Search for Meaning: “Don't aim at success--the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run--in the long run, I say!--success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it”
