When I was 5, I wanted to be a professional mermaid. I loved to swim and I loved being in the water. As I got older, I wanted to be a lawyer. I was always being a detective trying to find ways to get my siblings into trouble. Around middle school I decided I wanted to be a doctor. That quickly changed when high school came around and I realized that I actually had to learn anatomy and biology and chemistry, and I figured out that becoming a doctor was simply not in my cards. Then came me wanting to become a business executive. I graduated high school and came to college. I love math. It's a universal language that anyone can speak if they just simply take the time to learn it. I then realized after my freshman year that I didn't want to take accounting. I didn't have any desires for management information systems. And what do you do at that point? After you have already taken a whole year and semester of that major?
Then come the hard decisions. You have to figure out what you really want to do with your life. Why would you just change everything when you've already put in so much time? Why would you go from being a business executive to wanting to write and create content? Why would you take that big of a pay cut? I'll tell you why. For happiness.
First, let me tell you what all the signs were. When I first came to college and completed my first semester, I wasn't doing great. I was very depressed and my grades reflected it. I thought it was just because of the adjustment from high school to college. I missed my family, I missed home cooked meals. I missed my best friend. Things were not easy for me at all. I didn't start making friends in college until halfway through my first semester, and I was very lonely.
Second semester came a little easier. I started getting out and doing more things with my friends that I made and I started focusing a little bit more. My grades still weren't the best at this point and I surely did not allocate my time in the correct way. I spent a lot of my time going out with my friends and I didn't care about my classes enough. I made quite a bit of mistakes and I was still pretty depressed. I thought maybe it was the school I was at. Maybe I didn't make the right choice when I chose my school. I planned on transferring back to the community college I went to in high school. I got my transcripts ready, I had everything in order to leave. I cancelled all the classes I registered for and I cancelled my dorm for the upcoming school year.
Then I changed my mind. I decided to stay at this school. I knew I would soon regret transferring. So I went online, registered for classes and got my dorm back in place. I figured I would just try one more time to see how it goes.
That semester is when I started to realize that maybe it was the major I was in that was making me unhappy. So I literally sat down and made a list of what I love to do. The first thing I put on that list was writing. I loved writing in high school and I loved being creative and writing always gave me that outlet. I started to think about what I could do with writing as a major. I thought about journalism, but I just don't want to be a writer, talking about other people's stories and experiences. Then I thought about communications. My school has an amazing communications program and I started to think about what I could do with that degree. I did some research and found out that I could go into such a wide variety of professions with a communications degree. Then I started thinking about what I could do with that, and I soon figured out that if I have a marketing background I would have a higher chance of getting a job in advertising or sales or something like that.
Then I decided to take the leap and just do it. I changed my major and my minor. Everyone criticized me. It is a huge pay cut and I understand that. That doesn't bother me as much as not being happy for the rest of my life. When I was depressed my self-esteem was at an all-time low. I gained quite a bit of weight and I wasn't doing well physically or emotionally.
My second semester my sophomore year, I started taking classes in my new major. You wouldn't believe the impact this had on me. All of my friends got to see it first hand. I started loving myself; I started loving my education. I couldn't believe that my overall happiness could be affected just by making this change. I started going to classes and my grades came up so quick. I started hanging out with more people and making more connections. I stopped being in my own little bubble. And the spark in my eyes that I thought I'd lost forever came back.
So yes, changing your major can affect your overall happiness. Take it from me, a first hand insight. Yes, I might have to take an extra year of college to finish my degree, but I can honestly say I've never been happier. My GPA has gone up and I've started to love the classes I'm taking.
So yes, changing your major is OK. It is not the end of the world and it is most definitely the best decision I've made to date.