As a freshman, I totally wanted to be a physics teacher. It’s true, a physics teacher. I loved physics in high school, I loved my physics teachers, but it just didn’t work out once I got here. I’m not going to lie, a part of me chickened out. Everyone kept saying how challenging it would be and how I would have to buckle up for all the sleepless nights and challenging courses. All I could picture was me in a psych ward, so I decided to go to school as an Italian major since it would be my double major, as random as it sounds, and I would go back to physics second semester when I was more comfortable and established at school. Unfortunately, the closest that I got back to physics was helping my roommate’s friend with his physics homework one night in my dorm.

There is a huge difference between how we think our lives are going to go and how they actually go. I no longer want to be a teacher after spending my whole life thinking that is what I wanted to do. I also no longer want to pursue physics because college helped me find my true passion through a long and challenging “journey.” I promise, my journey is nothing like "The Bachelor."

Going into school as an Italian major, I was under the impression that I would continue to learn the language; I was mistaken. First semester, I was placed in an upper-level class having — or struggling to have — in depth discussions about Italian politics without any English involved. I hated it but tried to convince myself that the agony would bring me to the land of fluency. I’m still not fluent. I remember sitting in the classroom thinking about how I would escape if my professor called on me. Tragically, my class was on the third floor. Still, I stuck with it because I had no idea what else I would do since I had abandoned physics and was not sure if I would go back to it.

While at a Major/Minor Fair during the first month of school, I found myself walking around while trying to figure out what else I could add to my résumé that would make me look “marketable.” I left with a double major, double minor and a terrified mother. Honestly, it is a blur to me now. A huge blurry mistake or clear life lesson, whichever way you want to look at it. I swear professors must be paid every time they recruit a student into their program because those people are convincing. I am still not sure how an Italian and Spanish double major with minors in international studies and communication was a good idea. The only program that really interested me was communication, but I was told that a communication major was generic and that the aforementioned arrangement would look better, so I listened to them. I didn’t know any better. These were professors, leaders in their fields. They had to know what they were talking about, right?

I was taking a communication class first semester for the core requirements, but it turned out to become my favorite class. I had never taken anything like it before and I found it so interesting, but as I said earlier, I was told that dual foreign language majors are rare and I would get a job a lot faster than a basic communication major. Therefore, I stuck it out for a semester and resisted the urge to make communication my major. By the spring semester, Italian became a minor, and by the following semester, so was Spanish. International studies was the biggest waste of my life, so we won’t even go there.

Changing my major to communication was the best decision that I ever made and is a decision that I made for myself, and not because anyone told me to do it. I still remember my professor, now advisor, jumping up and hugging me after asking her to sign off on my change of major to join her department. It was one of the best feelings in the world.

If I never changed my major, I would have never learned that I love public speaking. Yeah, public speaking. Next to nobody likes public speaking, but odd enough, I do. I enjoy writing speeches, but more importantly, I love delivering them, and while I still do enjoy foreign languages, I am not about to give speeches in any other language than English if I don’t have to.

There is always the stigma that we need to pick majors and areas of study based on how likely we are to get internships and jobs after college, and while communication majors do have many options out there, I am still proud that I made the decision for me. I chose the major because it got me excited and interested in education, which is saying a lot because I hate school. We should never settle on our education just because a professor “gives us advice” — along with a major declaration form — or perhaps because you think that accountants make a lot of money, so you want to too. If your education is not making you happy, if you are miserable like I was, then you are not studying the right thing. Remember that you — well, your parents for the most part — are paying for this education. Why would you throw money down the tube all to be stuck taking classes that make you want to rip your hair out? It doesn’t make sense.

It is important to explore your options at college and while the core requirements may be overwhelming and at times frustrating, they may lead you down an actual path of discovery. I think we should all be forced to go into college undecided because most people change their minds and sometimes, more than I did. In some cases, people spend so much time studying something they hate that they decide too late that they want to change their major, and by that point, they are not going to graduate on time. This reality shouldn’t have to happen.

College-aged youth have no idea what they want to do with their lives. There are 80-year-olds that don’t know what they want to do with their lives. So let’s stop declaring our futures before we are actually declared legal adults. Explore your options before it is too late. You could discover a part of yourself that you never knew before. I promise that you won’t regret it.