Yes, before you read this, I know it’s been said before. It’s been said so many times, maybe you’re getting tired of reading all these articles from people who finally make the switch to Arts and Letters and it’s the best thing they’ve ever done etc, etc. When I came into college with chemistry intent, I said that definitely wasn’t going to be me. And then it was me. So I’m saying it again, because it needs to be said again.
And here’s why:
During fall semester, I tutored a chem student. She was intelligent, motivated and full of a determination that I still admire. The difference between us was that while I'd struggled through the class in my first semester, she was still in high school—tenth grade, to be exact—so it was impressive (and that’s an understatement) to see her working through a class that she wasn’t supposed to take for another three years.
When I asked her why she was doing this, she said, “it’s not competitive to only take high school classes in high school anymore.” So on top of the pressures of extracurriculars, SAT and ACT testing and grades in the classes she was already taking, she now had to contend with college STEM classes in order to get into college? Now, she was very good at chemistry. But she had a passion for service and social issues. She could have been taking classes related to that, and probably would have been happier, but she had to contend with the massive pressures of college applications.
I’m sure most of us can identify with this. I’m sure we all remember the anxiety of the college process, the feeling that we were competing for our futures with both classmates and strangers. And then I realized what she was experiencing doesn’t stop when we get into college. It just takes a different form. We're pushed to pursue the "practical" and in the process, we get caught in a race we don’t want to be running.
I was doing this myself at the time. I was still standing in front of a fume hood every Tuesday mixing and burning various things in a general state of anxiety, counting the hours before I could get out and finally go to choir rehearsal, because I thought this was going to get me a job more easily than the pursuit of what I cared about.
And before I keep going—I can’t stress this enough, so I’ll put it in bold—science is for some people. Engineering is for some people. The “practical” majors are for some people. I know and love and live with a number of people who really should be in the sciences, who really should be engineers or doctors and are going to make an amazing difference in the world that way, because that's what they care about.
The flip-side of that is, the “practical” majors aren’t for everyone. At some point last semester, I realized I was done going through the motions of something I didn’t actually want, and that was OK. I wasn’t going to be in chemistry research for the rest of my life, and that was OK. It wasn't a dramatic revelation. It was just the quiet understanding that I should be doing something else.
So, hopefully, I’m going to end up an English professor. It won’t be perfect. I know it’s going to be challenging. I will have to be competitive in my field. I will have to work hard to get into a doctorate program after college. The difference is that it’s something I actually want to do.
So, if you’re reading this thinking about changing majors:
Do whatever you love. Be an engineer. Build skyscrapers. Teach math. Make music. Do physics research. Be a doctor. Write poetry. It doesn’t matter. If it’s what you love, what brings you joy, what you’re willing to work for, then it’s where you should be. Whether society says “but what will you do with that?” or “good for you, picking something practical”—don’t let it affect you. If you love it, it’s practical for you.
