I recently wrote an article on how I almost went to a different university than the one I am currently attending. I now want to share why I changed my major during my freshman year.
See, I originally thought that I would major in journalism (at my school it's known as Journalism & Media Communications), and that I would minor in English (Creative Writing). I tried that, but a couple months into my freshman year, I hated my classes. I hated walking 10-20 minutes down to the communications building only to sit in an 8AM where I had no idea what was going on. I hated that I had to take another public speaking course even though I had already taken one 2 years earlier. I hated that I came back to my dorm room stressing out over my assignments. I hated that I cried to my mom on the phone. I hated that I wasn't happy.
I had to make a pretty big decision: to do what would make me happy (albeit, a tiny bit uncomfortable, since my high school didn't offer creative writing courses) or to spend the next four years doing something that I thought I was supposed to be doing.
Journalism was all I knew. It was all I thought I was good at, because it was the only writing-based elective I could take my junior/senior years of high school. In elementary school, I remember my first foray into a story was a 10 page piece on a camping trip. I was in second grade and really proud of myself for handwriting that much. In third and fifth grades, I submitted my Halloween themed stories to the local paper. In middle school, I wrote an essay called "Why Me, Why Not?" -- about an event that I didn't expect to happen to me. I wrote about my eye surgeries and got a A+. I thrived in my literature classes during those years and my teachers believed in me.
The courses I took my last two years of high school were what made me hate writing and made me think I wasn't good enough. We weren't taught in a creative way, we were taught solely based in theories and analysis. While others got to write stories or try their hand at poetry, I was stuck analyzing Hamlet for 75% of the year.
What solidified my decision of changing my major was when I had the opportunity to write a personal essay for my integrative studies class during fall of my freshman year. I wrote about my struggles with depression but was nervous to share it because I was in a group with all guys. Turns out, one of them liked it so much he sent it to his girlfriend who had gone through similar struggles. She read it and said, "Wow, that could have been about me. I related to it so much."
That changed me. I realized that I could help people through words, and I wanted to continue to share my stories to help myself or inspire someone else. It was a powerful moment, and I couldn't be more thankful that it happened -- because it led me to make the switch from Journalism to English.
