As a senior in high school, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. In fact, I still have no idea; I can barely make the decision of which dining hall to go to for breakfast without breaking out in hives. This crippling indecisiveness is exactly the reason why I decided to enter Ohio State as a university exploration major.Essentially, the University Exploration program is built to help students figure out what to major in. It sounds simple enough. However, deciding what to major in entails much more than what initially meets the eye
In my survey class, I often found myself confronted with questions such as “What are you passionate about?”, “What kind of an impact do you want to make on the world?”, “How much do you want to work?” and “Do you want to have a family?” among other daunting life ponderings.
They gave us tests that were supposed to quantitatively determine our strengths and weaknesses and, therefore, generate a list of applicable majors for our personality type. They had us learn about over 200 majors that were available to us and interview people in potential majors.
The University Exploration program had the process of deciding a major down to a science, but here’s the problem: your post-graduate studies, your career and your life are not necessarily determined by your major.
There is a widespread mindset that attending higher-level education should be with a dedication to career preparation rather than an intention to learning. Students should not be pressured to decide a major and then get siphoned off into rigid curriculum tracks, just because they think that they will fall behind if they do not choose a major freshman year.
College is about exploring and learning, especially as a first or second-year student. While the primary idea underlying the exploration program is great, a place for students to go to get help in figuring out what they want to specialize in, it has lost sight of the most important value of education: loving what you are learning.
For all those students out there searching for a major, trying to figure out where to go in life or struggling to make insignificant daily decisions, you are not alone. Remember to find something that you love to learn about and that makes you excited to get up and go to class, unless it is an 8 a.m.