I came to college not knowing what I wanted to study. Everybody told me it was better that way, as it would offer me more opportunities to explore and discover what I'm truly interested in. My first semester I was a little uneasy, but I figured that I had almost three semesters before I had to declare my concentration, so I shopped classes that interested me. Although I was exploring around 10 different classes in subjects ranging from chemistry to anthropology, I settled on four amazing classes that I really enjoyed.

Then second semester Shopping Week rolled around and I still had no idea what I wanted to study. All of the people around me seemed to have their lives figured out. They all came to college knowing exactly what they wanted and Shopping Week was nothing more than another week of classes for them. Suddenly I became concerned that if I didn't commit to something now, I would somehow fall behind. I was also contemplating concentrating in MCB or HDRB as a pre-med student, but the overwhelming number of requirements in math, chemistry, physics, and biology were incredibly daunting. I shopped classes for what felt like nearly every concentration offered at Harvard in a futile effort to find something that sparked something within me and told me "this is what I want to study." But I never found that spark. The classes that I shopped were all enjoyable and I would have been happy taking any of them, but that feeling of compulsion just wasn't there because the confusion inside me was simply too suffocating.

I was so confused, in fact, that I ended up enrolling in a Freshman Seminar called "How did the first stars and galaxies form?" because, well... why not?

I spent hours locked in my room researching different concentrations, analyzed q-scores for various classes, and asked just about everyone I knew for advice. For the first time in my life (other than that time I ended up at BU while going for a run), I was completely lost. Harvard offers its students an extraordinary level of independence, but as someone who had never felt such academic freedom, I felt helpless.

As of Friday, I've enrolled in four classes. They are all completely unrelated and may end up being useless in the future, but that doesn't matter because they all interest me. This stressful 5-day period known as Shopping Week has taught me that it's okay to be confused. Part of the college experience is learning how to be independent and cope with life's stressful moments. The world isn't going to end simply because I haven't planned out my entire life as an 18-year-old.

As I was scrolling through Facebook, avoiding sectioning for Expos, I came across this image:

The best is yet to come. And if you already know exactly what that is.. well, it just isn't nearly as exciting.