In the past year I have gone from being a grumpy, hormonal, emotional wreck who didn't even want to spend time with herself let alone with her sorority sisters or go to class, to having my life together and feeling balanced enough to not panic when I can't find my favorite sweater even though I literally just had it on (Hint past Cait: it's in your hand.)

How did I take this miraculous turn for the better? It wasn't a spiritual awakening, it wasn't the discovery of a new miracle drug to help with depression or anxiety. It wasn't more sleep or less sleep or waking up and going on a mile run each morning (though I might want to consider working out).

I changed my major. Again. That makes three changes and, dauntingly, I did it in my third year of undergrad. I was already on a five-year graduation plan, but the difference in my five-year action plan in Electrical Engineering and my five-year action plan in Applied Mathematics is the difference in walking into an educational building and not wanting to crawl out of your skin.

If you are not a STEMs major, or you are already getting freaked out by all of the assumed intelligence that is imposed on someone when they are a STEMs major, I implore you to keep reading. I'm normal, I promise.

So let's get to the headline: Why five is greater than four?

I am now a [semi] pro when it comes to writing mathematical proofs and proving statements are true or false. I have written a proof that explains why 5 is greater than 4 (not mathematically but in terms of college time) if you really want to see it, email me.

To expedite your reading experience, if you don't care about my strife up until now, just skip the next two paragraphs and get to the guts of my argument.

When I was on the four-year path to success I was predicted to take 18 credit hours a semester [at least] and would have to take four classes during summer semesters just to graduate in four years; I will go ahead to admit that this would not be an issue if I had just stuck with my music major, but that's another story for another article. I was spent just on classes. The amount of time it took to finish my labs and do the homework and re-read the textbook to attempt to understand the content left me with just enough time to eat a muffin and sleep.

To my parent's dismay, I elected to reduce those credit hour requirements per semester and add a year- and I did not feel any relief from the day to day agony of classes that I didn't understand or want to understand, learning material that I was so severely uninterested in that I don't even remember a whole semester's worth of content. Enter Mathematics in all of its numeric glory.

In switching to Mathematics I kept my five-year deadline to evacuate WCU, but I also lowered my credit hour per semester rate to 13. That is roughly four classes a semester. What this means is that I now have the opportunity to let my inner basic white girl and my inner math genius, as well as my inner cat, thrive, simply by giving them time to exist. I now have the time and energy (thanks to full nights of sleep and weekends of relaxation) to fully and purposely engage in my sorority sisters. I have more than enough outlets with my classes to let my anxiety melt away as I prove that a diagonal matrix is also a symmetric matrix, and furthermore- I have time to watch Jenna Marbles videos or read the newest book in my collection for...fun.

While the majority of people reading this are going to read the first half of this and either go glossy eyed or just close the tab of their browser, what I'm saying is that most people go to college thinking that the path to success is lined with late nights, no sleep, anxiety attacks and being done with the horrors of college in just four years. That is bull. Taking your time, having fun, taking care of yourself mentally and physically, ensuring that you find some ounce of joy in what you are studying will make your time in college wonderful and so enjoyable that you will never want to stop learning.

Forget about what major is most profitable, forget about being a starving artist in a couple years, forget about that two-year time frame where you are going to have to live with your parents again. If you find unfathomable joy in photographing nature, or you get the greatest sense of worth from teaching children, if all you want to do is organize socials, philanthropy events or community service for your sorority or fraternity – Do It.

Take the extra year, pick up the second major, and a minor, run for a position in your organization, do the things that make the five, six, however many years that you are on a college campus worth it and memorable. If you do, you'll wake up each morning with a renewed purpose and with a peace of mind that is invaluable.