During my senior year of high school, I knew exactly what I wanted. I knew what I wanted to major in in college, I knew what I wanted out of college, and I knew what I wanted to do after college. I had this perfect image in my head of what I wanted and I had had it for about a year now.

I was going to be a nurse.

All my life I have always wanted to pursue a career in the medical field. I didn't enjoy school enough to go through four years of medical school after obtaining my Bachelor's Degree, so I thought nursing would be a perfect fit for me. Ever since I can remember, I have always been so fascinated and intrigued by the human anatomy. Still to this day, I love learning about it and reading about the human body. I find it so interesting. Along with this, I also loved the idea of being able to form a relationship with your patients. I love to help people and that's what I wanted to do. I knew it would be challenging, but I was so excited to start college begin my nursing journey.

Soon before my freshman year of college started, I found out I would be living with eight girls (including myself), and to my surprise, we were ALL nursing majors. Yes. All eight of us. Don't ask me how that happened. Anyways, at first, I thought, "Oh wow! This is going to be great." In my head, I imagined all of us in the same classes and always helping each other with homework and just bonding over our potential futures together. While some of that did happen- a few of us had classes together and we would occasionally help each other with homework if we could, I found myself becoming discouraged quite often. I knew nursing was a competitive major, but I didn't know it was THAT competitive. I found myself not enjoying my classes as much as I thought I would be and in turn, my grades started slipping. At the end my first year of college, I found myself reflecting on everything that had happened within that year. As much as it pained me to admit it to myself, I came to the decision that I didn't want to be a nurse.

I pondered the idea of changing my major and went back and forth countless times. Part of me was slightly embarrassed that I felt like I needed to change my major. But why? Why was I embarrassed to tell people that I decided to not pursue what I had been determined to accomplish all these years? Why was I embarrassed to figure out what I REALLY wanted to do later on in life? I feel as if there's this unspoken rule among colleges that once we choose something, we must stick with it for the next four years. There's absolutely nothing wrong with simply deciding you don't like something.

Officially declaring a new major took a huge leap of faith for me. Throughout my entire life, my mom has always told me that I should go into graphic design. I didn't really know what that exactly was and I was so hung up on going into something in the medical field, that I didn't care to learn more about this.

I follow a girl that I went to high school with on social media, and she was a few years ahead of me in college and was also a graphic design major. I always found myself so interested in her projects and various designs that she would post online. Since I didn't have a concrete plan of what I wanted to do now since nursing was out of the question, I decided to change my major to graphic design. I didn't know if I was making the right decision and that scared me. I knew nothing about the program or the major itself and I didn't have any friends that were art majors. Although it was hard, I just had to listen to my gut on this one, and I am happy I did.

I am now in my third year of college and I am a graphic design major with a marketing minor and I have never been more confident in what I am currently pursuing in college.

I absolutely love what I do. More importantly, I actually enjoy my classes now. I enjoy learning, seeing my progress as time goes on, and informing others about what I love to do. Sure, graphic designers don't make as much as a nurse would, but I would rather love my job and make less money than dread going to work everyday while rolling in money. Taking that stressful leap of faith was one of the best decisions I have made for myself.

Changing my major to something completely different does not mean I am not good enough to do what I previously wanted to do. It does not mean that I don't appreciate the career of nursing. I admire anyone and everyone who has the ambition to go through nursing school. Changing my major simply means that I have jumped through some hoops to get here, but I have finally found what I want to do for the rest of my life.

P.S. Thank you, Mom, for always nagging me to go into graphic design. If it weren't for you, I probably wouldn't be where I am now. You're the best.