Senior year of high school, you begin filling out college applications. You answer in-depth questions about your academic standards, gather the documents required by each school, and write personal essays about "who you are." But for many, that's not even the hardest part about the application. For many, the biggest challenge is choosing amongst the school's long list of majors - deciding what you want to do for the rest of your life.
The problem with that is that our hopes and dreams often change due to the circumstances around us. When I was five I wanted to be a singer. When I was twelve I wanted to be a banker. When I was fourteen I wanted to own and manage a nursing home. When I was seventeen I wanted to be a therapist. When I was eighteen I wanted to be a pilot. I was never the kid who grew up knowing she was going to be a doctor. Most people weren't.
At the beginning of my freshman year, I chose aviation management as my major. Since then, I have changed my major three times. In less than a year, I have had four different majors. The good thing about this was that I was just a freshman and most of my classes were gen-eds that I would have had to take anyways. The bad thing was that I ended up getting very confused and anxious about my future.
The truth is, we have no idea who we are at the beginning of freshman year. At that point, we had just completed four years of what seemed like the hardest work we'd ever done. Little did we know, life had just begun and tasks would only become more challenging. Throughout our first year of college, we learn how to push ourselves to new boundaries in order to make grades, be social, and stay healthy. Because of that we really grow a lot.
It's okay, and it might even be smarter, to be an undecided major your freshman year of college. People change, dreams shift, and the possibilities for the future remain unknown. So if you are enrolling into your college of choice, but still have no idea what career you want to pursue, that's OK. You will learn more about who you are and what you are good at in the first few months of college than you ever did in high school. Keep your mind open and your attitude positive. You may just look back and be surprised where you end up.
