I was a late bloomer - in the college sense I suppose. It took me until the first semester of my junior year to actually declare my major and begin to figure out what in the world I want to do with my life. I went into college as one major, made it through about 2 weeks of that, and then had a mental breakdown at 2am one night and emailed my advisor, begging her to help me get out of that major. I was then undecided for about 3 and a half semesters of my college career. Sounds daunting, I know. But it is totally okay that it took me so long to figure it out.
I wanted to write this article because I felt like my own experiences could help someone who is in the same position that I was. I think that our educational system really puts a lot of pressure on its students to always be ahead of the game and to always know what's going on. Here's the truth: it's okay to not be ahead of the game sometimes. Kids are entering college at 18 years old and they are told that they need to have a plan and know what they want to do for the rest of their lives - but they still can't even drink legally or do plenty of "adult things". The education system is kind of unfair in that aspect. High school students have to get permission to go to the bathroom, but then once senior year hits, they are expected to have a full fledged itinerary for their careers. Seems kind of backwards, in my opinion. College is such a different environment for learning, and I feel that there are so many different opportunities to try new things that it would be almost a crime not to try out at least one new thing when you get there, be it a club, or a class that isn't the kind of class that you would normally take.
This is not to say that those students, who have their major and career and college life planned out, are wrong in doing so. If you are someone that can have those ideas and put your nose to the grindstone to get them done, then by all means you should do that. But if you are someone who has lots of interests and wants to try out lots of different things before settling into a major, that is completely okay. Don't feel like you are behind or wrong for doing that. And if you're someone like me who thinks they know what they want to do, and then gets to college and learns that their major isn't actually for them, that is also okay. You are allowed to change your major. Take classes that interest you, find out what you like, and eventually you will fall into something that you really enjoy and have a lot of passion for. Everyone does things at their own pace, and there is no reason to make such a big decision so quickly. It's never too late to change your life.
