Realizing that I am a junior in college and that I am stepping into the Spring semester before my senior year has actually begun to terrify me. I am about to hit my last year of my undergraduate life and I'm not really sure where I'm going. By now, most people believe they should have a career path or at least an idea of post-graduate work. For me, this is a problem.
Why do we feel that it is necessary to know so early on in college what we really want to do? There are some majors, like education and engineering, that need to be defined straight away so that students can begin to fill those required classes. I feel that this is unfair -- we are forcing teenagers into aligning themselves with a career day one of college. While most universities allow students to wait until the end of their junior year to officially choose a major, this is too late for most people. By this time, other students have almost finished the majority of their credits for their selected major and those who went into school as undecided are struggling to catch up just so that they can graduate on time.
On top of that, it's becoming much more difficult for students to appear attractive to employers if they did not have a direct career path when they began their schooling. This is forcing students to choose a major that they may not necessarily believe fits them, in turn having them waste time and money taking classes that ultimately do not end up benefitting them. And the students who change majors multiple times often feel as if they are drowning because they are trying to catch up to the kids who have been in that major class for much longer.
At this point in my life, I'm really not sure what I want to do for a career. Do I want to go to law school or am I more interested in earning a PhD. in my current major? Do I want to work full-time or go to school while balancing a day job? Should I spend a few years in the workforce before going back to school or should I go straight from undergrad to post-grad? These are the questions that have been swirling around in my head, and it's really not helping that my graduation from my undergraduate institution is coming down the pike so quickly.
I think we should be more accepting as a society of the students who are unsure what they truly want. Hell, we're only 21 or 22 years old when we graduate college at this rate, making it really difficult for us to fully understand who we are as individuals let alone what we want for our futures. We should be giving students, even more tools to allow them to discuss what they want to do, what interests them, what intrigues them about the world. Having open discussions with students gives them the chance to articulate what makes them happy and keeps them going.
It's okay not to know what you want if you're in college - though the world may say the opposite, it's stressful to think you need to lay out your whole life in four years and then begin to live in the real world. If you're struggling with your major or the career path you think you've chosen, it's okay! Know that you are not alone and that second-guessing the decisions you've made is very normal. Talk to an academic advisor or your school's career center about the different options you may have within your major. Nobody said you had to know it all once you got to college, so try not to feel like that's a requirement!
Be free to make your own choices! Be free to feel a little nervous and unsure about your future, that's what makes it so exciting. You don't need to plan out your entire life right now, trust me. Things will fall into place. Take a few deep breaths and think about what you hope to get out of life. It's okay not to know what you want right now. I promise things will still work out in the end. Just go with the flow!
