What are you majoring in? What do you want to do as a career? Those are hands down my least two favorite questions. But I’ll answer both of them right now: I don’t know! I came into college undecided and still have not declared a major. Most of this stems from the fact that I don’t really know what I want to do every day of my life for 40 years. If I knew I definitely wanted to go to medical school or if I knew I wanted a financial advisor, it would be a lot easier to choose a major. However, I am constantly torn being going to medical school, going to law school, becoming a high school teacher, and getting involved in business. Consequently, I am juggling majoring in politics, math, pre-med, economics, and some type of business major.
Not having a major or a career path bothered me at first. It was very frustrating to be in a group of people and having to hear everyone go around and say their major, only to realize that I was one of few to still be undeclared. But now, I fully embrace and quite enjoy being undecided. I get to take all the classes I want to take while exploring. It took me a while to realize that undecided equals opportunity. It gives me more freedom than other people who have two majors and a minor already picked out. It allowed me to spend my first year at college focusing on the transition from high school instead of the transition into the real world after graduation.
It took me a while to see that it’s perfectly normal to be undecided in college. Though it is usually the most popular major for incoming freshmen, the number of undeclared students is subordinated by the number of students who can confidently say, “I’m double majoring in chemistry and physics with minors in psychology and Spanish.” Or sometimes even by the students who are undecided but have a career path in mind. There are few and far between who can confidently say, “I’m undecided and have no clue what I want to do with my life.”
Being undecided allows for more opportunity in the job field. What if I had a major picked out and did an internship in that field, but I wasted my summer because I ended up hating it? Being undecided has allowed me to spend my summer trying out different jobs. I’ve shadowed a dermatologist a handful of times and went to work with an accountant, a lawyer-turned-judge and a financial advisor. These opportunities I have through being undecided will allow me to get a better sense of what I want to do as a career.
So my little piece of advice is that if you are undecided, that is perfectly OK. It’s hard to know what you want to do every day for the next forty years of your life. I know it’s very stressful to hear people ask what you’re studying, but the answer is simple: everything! And if there’s one thing I learned from going to seminars and hearing employers talk about hiring, it’s that being any kind of liberal arts major who took a wide variety of classes is very appealing to an employer. I know it seems like you have question marks about your future, but I would honestly argue that you’re better off. So don’t sweat being undecided! Embrace it!
