College. Majors. Minors. Graduation. Career. Future.

While I am only a mere freshman in college, my future is a concept that decided to camp out in the front of my mind once I set foot in my first college classroom. Thoughts and questions have tossed and turned in my mind, especially during the past couple months. I've had various attempts to try to figure out my course schedule for the next three and a half years of my life. What classes do I want to take? What classes do I need to take? Is it possible to get a major and two minors within four years? Can I even study abroad?

I'm going to tell you, it is hella stressful. Freshman year is full of transitions, and it almost seems like you're stuck in a sort of limbo: colleges tell their students that they don't have to worry about their major until the end of sophomore year, but in my situation, if I wait until the end of my sophomore year, I will have to bust my ass to get all the credits I need to graduate.

Because its such an issue, whenever I get time to myself, I continually stress out about my future, running a series of hypothetical situations in my head: "Let's say I do graduate on time, with my major and two minors... I'm not planning on going to graduate school... but can I even get a job without a master's?... but I don't want to go to graduate school... maybe I could get a job without a master's... but I don't know...", and it goes on and on and on.

I am 18 years old. How am I supposed to know anything about what I want to do with my life when I spent the last four years of my life taking basic credit courses to graduate high school? I'm just happy that I figured out I probably want to go into journalism, so I was not ready for the zero to 100 situation that started to happen sometime the past year.

But should I really be worrying about all this stuff right now? To me, I feel like I should just be enjoying this new found freedom that comes with this stage of my life, not spending my time worried about what will happen in the next one. But we all know that comes a lot easier said than done: I know that I still have a couple years to go, but can I really continue on with my college career without keeping in mind what's coming next?

The trick is to find the balance between living to the fullest now and being prepared for the future. I usually try to fill my mind with other things, not just because I want to be distracted, but because I actually do have a lot of other things I have to worry about, things that are coming much faster — and sooner — than graduation.

That said, thinking about other stuff actually comes pretty easy: there's too many experiences that I have the opportunity to try right now, and you know what? Call me crazy, but I don't want to waste it thinking about hypothetical situations that may or may not happen in the future.