Choosing a major in college is a decision that will affect your entire college experience. It will dictate your schedule, the type people you meet in your classes, how much time you might spend studying, how much money you spend on textbooks, and even how long it might take for you to graduate. Maybe you’re the type of person who has known what you were gonna major in since you could understand the concept of college. If that person isn't you, and believe me, if definitely was not me, here is my perspective on the journey to finding a major that will give you the experience that’s right for you.
Let me take you back to the start of it all: freshmen year of college. Like many other young ambitious minds of my generation, I was convinced that earning a degree in science was the only way I would be successful. I enrolled in all the scary classes: physics, calculus, etc. They were all courses that made people raise their eyebrows at me and tell me “wow, I could never do that.” I remember sitting inside of a huge lecture hall of over 300 people, staring at symbols on the projector screen and thinking to myself, this just is not me. After going through high school believing that I would one day be a science major, this thought led me through a quarter-life crisis. Suddenly, everything became fuzzy. Picturing my future looked like a void of blank space and my passion for anything and everything was diminished. The toll was devastating to my social life, my grades, and most of all, my motivation.
The people who are close to me noticed these changes. Thankfully, I am surrounded by many supportive faces, constantly encouraging me to be my best. One day, as I was venting to some random acquaintance about my lost hopes and dreams, she asked me an important question. “What did you like to do when you were a child?”
People have definitely asked me this question before, but never within the context of any conversation regarding my future plans. I took a moment to think about this. Actually, I spent days thinking about this. What did I like to do when I was a child?
The answer appeared quickly. Let me take you back to my first grade classroom with me for a moment. I had spent the entire week writing a book and I was eager to share my first work of art with the entire class. The teacher had everyone's attention, asking them to listen to my story that I had been dying to blurt out to anybody who would listen. As I went up to stand in front of a crowd for possibly the first time in my entire life, I pulled out a small stack of paper that my mom had bound together with a hole-puncher and some ribbons. It had a giant drawing of a giraffe on the cover, one that I illustrated myself of course. I took a deep breath as I read the first page out loud to my classmates: “Giraffes have long necks.” It’s a shame that this is the only line I can recall from the first and only book I have ever written. At one point in my life, I had a passion for writing and sharing my own stories, even if I was only 7 years old.
That is my advice to you. Take a moment to reminisce on your childhood passions. Dig deep into your memory, ignore all the clutter surrounding the worry of being successful, and take the risk. Dive into something that you know you love. Maybe you liked pretending to be a police officer, a singer, a doctor, or a writer like myself, who found the answer in a giraffe book.
