And so the semester begins. New classes. New schedules. New buddies with whom to eat lunch. With the new year comes a hint of change in the air, a hint of hope for whatever life will bring.

But with the new year also comes new beginnings, and with that comes the realization that no matter how hard you try, you are forever growing and changing as an individual: your motives, hopes, fears, dreams.

My revelation of this little-known fact came to me while sitting behind one of the obnoxiously large Mac computers in my journalism class early on a Wednesday morning. I sat there in a trance, staring at my blank computer screen as the teacher reiterated the upcoming assignments for our class. As I sat there, a pang of fear struck me, made me question for a split second the five months I have spent at college thus far. That pang of fear stemmed from a sudden realization that perhaps I didn't want to do this anymore. I am a journalism major, and I was sitting smack dab in a journalism class, but did I really want to be there? So many writing assignments. Do I even like to write?

Of course, I truly do love to write. That's why I'm sitting here writing this article. But that wasn't the first time I had suffered through a sudden tide of self-doubt that left me confused and worried about my future. I question whether I like writing. Whether I am in the right major. Whether I am in the right college. Whether I should have even gone to college in the first place. All of these questions run through my head within a matter of seconds, overwhelming with the weight that they carry.

But this self-doubt is not new. In high school, everyone expected me to have my life together, to know exactly what I wanted to be, exactly where I wanted to go. But I had no clue. I liked just about everything. Art. Theater. Writing. Photography. Math. Spanish. History. Political science. Etc. Every time I would try to pick a path, I would break out into a sweat, too afraid to commit to any particular future.

For the senior speeches and essays, I had come up with the perfect algorithm to avoid talking about what I was going to do with my life. "An RA at my summer program once said that if anyone ever asked us what we wanted to do when we grow up, simply reply, 'Everything,'" I would say. This sentence soon became a cliché for me. I had written and said it so many times. I had forgotten what I had originally meant by that sentence in the first place.

So when I got to college, when I was faced with the dilemma of starting off with enough college hours to be halfway through my sophomore year, I had to pick. I had to pick what I was going to be doing with rest of my life. At least that's what I convinced myself I had to do.

Sitting in that journalism class at a painful 8:30 a.m., hyperventilating over the meaning of life, I finally thought back to why I had originally written down that sentence in the first place. It wasn't just to avoid picking a major. It was a true statement that once upon a time I had vowed to live by. I had vowed that no matter where my schooling would take me, no matter what career I decided to choose, I would never let those factors be the definition of who I was as a person. That I would be what I chose to be outside of my career. A world-traveler, a faithful daughter, a supportive friend. It didn't matter quite as much what I was going to be. It just mattered who I was going to be.

So if you are in the same boat as me, if you have random panic attacks about the fate that your future holds, have no fear. The new year truly is a time of new beginnings. But remember that this year, and any year, isn't where the days may take you. It truly is just what you make of it.