When I was 18 years old, my mom did my laundry, I had never driven on the highway before, I didn’t really understand how taxes worked, I was just barely old enough to vote, and I entered my freshman year of college. During one of my RAs’ opening week icebreakers, we had to answer: If you could do anything five years from now, what would you want to do? I answered, “I would want to be married to Chris Hemsworth.”
My friends from my freshman floor still make fun of me for that answer, as they should—it was dumb and I was just looking for the laughs. But truthfully, I gave that answer because when someone asked what I would love to be doing in five years, I had no freaking idea. I wasn’t passionate about anything to the point where I had to join that field, loving it from day one to day 3,581. I was 18, naïve and had no clue about the life experiences ahead of me that would shape my path—yet in college, we are expected at age 18 to have a pretty good idea of who we want to be for the rest of our lives.
At Syracuse, most people enter with a major that they either keep or switch out of within their second year, with the exception of Architecture students who pretty much know the 5-year engagement they sign up for. THe other day, a friend told me about how much has changed since we were freshmen. “I was taking biology courses freshman year,” said Morgan McMullen, a Senior Graphic Design major.
Morgan came in as a Biology major but realized that she didn’t feel like the peg fit the hole quite securely. It wasn’t what she wanted to do, so she switched to Graphic Design, a decision that shaped not only her college career, but her study-abroad choice as well. She chose to study in Copenhagen, which had a better design program than the London center. Having studied in Copenhagen, she is now applying to international jobs in order to return.
Another Senior, Kat Lynch, entered Syracuse as a Communication Sciences and Disorders major. During her sophomore year, she made the switch to Public Health, which was another major in Falk College, but it was more in line with what she thought she wanted to do. I say “thought” and not “knew” because just the other day we were catching up over drinks and she was talking about her plans to apply to Americorps. She’s not exactly sure what she’ll end up doing for Americorps if she gets in, but she knows that she wants to help those in need. Take her back to Freshman year when she’s supposed to select a major and answer the question, “If you could be anywhere in five years where would you be?”—maybe she has an answer to the question, “I want to be somewhere where I’m helping people,” but at 18 years old, she had no clue which major would get her there.
I’ve run the gauntlet of trying to figure out who or where I want to be five years from now. I wanted to be an archaeologist, then a researcher, then a teacher, then a lawyer, then a professor, then a reader for a publisher, then a writer for a magazine, then a travel photographer, then a volunteer for the Peace Corps, and here I am as a senior about to graduate in a few months, sort of torn between all of them. I am an English major and have been since the end of my freshman year when I switched from Anthropology. But right now I’m applying to jobs at magazines, while also studying for my LSAT’s, while also feeling like maybe my calling is to be a teacher.
It’s a scary business, not knowing what you want to do. Maybe the scary part isn’t that you feel like you should know what you want to do, but that everyone else expects you to have it all figured out by the time you’re 19. Guess what? I wanted to switch my major during my junior year to Magazine Journalism, but I couldn’t because I was too late. I’m sure I’m not the only one this has happened to. Perhaps some John or Jane is at this university and they’re taking Accounting or Broadcast Journalism classes. But say some life experience happens to them during their junior year and they decide they want to be doctors. Well, according to our college timeline, it’s too late for them to make that decision unless they want to shell out thousands of dollars more to take the necessary courses. That’s just sad.
College should be considered a time of exploration. If you know exactly who you want to be at the age of 18, congratulations, but are you sure? Those three words have the power to keep you up at night. Obviously, when you’re in college you have to pick a major in order to graduate. I’m not suggesting that should change or that it even can be changed. All I’m suggesting is that you give yourself a little room to change your mind. A favorite professor of mine once started his PowerPoint with a quote, “If you never change your mind, why have one?” I’ve changed my mind more than anyone I know, and maybe I still don’t know who I want to be or what I want to do. At least I’m secure in the knowledge that I am trying to figure it out so that one day, five years from now when I ask myself, “are you sure?” I’ll know that I am.