Raise your hand if you've ever felt personally victimized by college?
*raises hand*
The college life is the struggle. With the pressures from academics, extracurriculars, relationships, and all around life in general, it's easy to feel overwhelmed or feel like your "life is in shambles." Weekly mental, emotional, and psychological breakdowns are the norm for college students. However, as 18-22+ year olds should we really be expected to have our lives completely figured out already? Doesn't that expectation seem a little far fetched?
During junior and senior year of high school, the pressures of what to do with your life begin to sink in. As you start figuring out what colleges you want to apply to and what you may want to major in - everything can feel like it's crashing down. Once you do get into a college or you do find a major, what if it's not the right school/major for you? How are you supposed to know you are making the right choice? If it ends up being the wrong choice, where do you go from there?
Maybe you are one of those people that has known their whole entire lives that they want to attend medical school and become a doctor. That's great. Yet, what about all the other college students who don't have a clue what they want to do with their lives? I don't think it is realistic to expect eighteen year-olds to know what they want to do with their future.
Many colleges say it's okay if you don't know what you want to do because during the first two years of college, you can just take general education courses until you figure out what you want to major in. Except that's not actually true. In order to graduate within four years, you kind of need to know which classes to take for your major to stay on track to finish that major. If you start taking a ton of computer science courses your first year of college and then realize you want to be a journalism major, you have to apply to switch to the new school and then your first year of college courses was basically a waste of your time. On top of that, what about internships or jobs? This is why college students often feel overwhelmed.
It's a lot of pressure to feel like you need to know right now what you want to do with your life. I often view college as a way to postpone "real life" for an additional four years. Other than my school work and personal health, I don't have any real responsibilities right now. Yet, "real life" is looming in the distance. Sometimes I feel like I'm just going through the motions and I don't take time to stop and actually ponder, "Is this what I really want to be doing with my life?" Sometimes I feel like I have it all together, and other times I feel like my life is completely falling apart. But here's a secret: It is okay to have your life in shambles sometimes. Trust me, you are not the only one feeling this way. Inhale, exhale and realize that even when your life feels completely out of control, you will figure it out and it will be okay.
