Go to college, they said. You’ll figure it out, they said. They said a lot. And personally, I think it’s ridiculous that at barely nineteen I am supposed to know what I want to do with the rest of my life. At nineteen, I can barely do my laundry without mixing a few white shirts with everything else and somehow ending up with some new pink ones. And at nineteen, I still don’t have a major. Here’s why.

I have too many things I want to do. And I can’t settle. I can’t settle because I love people, I love helping people, talking to people, and I really love people. I can’t sit at a desk all day, sitting by myself with zero social interaction, snacking out of boredom, because that’s what I do currently and I can tell you there’s a lot of other things I’d rather be doing.

And these are the things I’d rather be doing. I’d rather be taking twenty classes for the twenty majors that I want to pursue. I’d like to be at Elon for the next twenty years and then hopefully, by the time I’m thirty-nine, I’ll know want I want to do with my life. Because thirty-nine seems a little bit more reasonable than nineteen, but who am to tell society that we need more time. I don’t think we need more time because society says you go to college, and then you get a job, you start paying taxes, and suddenly you’re entirely self sufficient and on your own. I think we need more time because of the time slipping away around us.

There are things happening around the world that are so incredibly substantial to people and cultures and we are trapped in a bubble that is sucking away at either yours or your parents life savings, which we are learning does not grow on trees. And you don’t hear about these things happening because you don’t have time to watch the news because the extensive textbook readings you are assigned leaves you little time and energy to read the newspaper.

It’s seemingly ridiculous, but I wonder why I can’t come to college and take whatever classes I want regarding my extensive list of interests, be here for four years, and never receive a diploma, but rather a well-rounded education that has allowed me to grow in more disciplines and ways than one. My major today may be Marketing, but tomorrow it will be Exercise Science. Then the next day it will be Criminology, then back to Exercise Science, and then maybe even back to Biology, where I think back to sitting in Chemistry in the first week of my freshman year and realizing I didn’t want to be a Pediatric Oncologist anymore.

But then I’ll attend Elonthon, which gives money to children’s cancer, and for a week I’ll want to be a Biology major again. In religion class my professor will ask what my aspiring major is, I’ll say Marketing, and then regret not saying Exercise Science because a response is evoked from him when another student says he wants to help people through his job. I’ll remember I want to help people too, because no matter how bad a day you’re having, someone always has bigger problems. And then I’ll go to my Business Law class and realize I want to be a lawyer, so that I can help people that way. Watch Law and Order and realize I want to help people through obtaining justice. And I’m not sure how I can help people through Marketing, at least not the way I want to, but I can see myself working for Buzzfeed, or Facebook, or Instagram, or some company that is fun and full of people who work all day and still love their jobs. I want to be able to work all day and love my job, but I’m not sure how to get there. And I’m not sure you can know how to get there at nineteen and I’m not sure what I’m even doing in college with this much confusion looming over my head. A path that is virtually non-existent because I want to do too much.

In today’s day and age, you do one thing, and you do that one thing for your life. And I don’t want to do that one thing, and I’ll never understand why I cant work as a Physical Therapist one day, work for the CIA the next, and be a Lawyer the day after that. That one-job deal isn’t gonna fly for a girl like me who just wants to do a lot. Next time you ask what my major is, I’ll laugh at you and say interpretive dance. But in actuality you’re helping me, helping me think about that question they throw at you when you’re nineteen, just like I hope to do something that helps you some day too.