You may have read the title and assumed this is about someone who is undeclared and has little to no idea what they want in life. And there’s nothing wrong with being that person, but that’s not me. I have always known what I want. It’s getting there that is the problem.
For some careers, going to college is a no-brainer. To be a doctor, a lawyer, a therapist, a nurse, you absolutely must have a degree.
But what about anything creative? How can a degree attest to your creativity?
I found my passions in elementary school and they have stuck with me ever since: writing and acting. I was always told they would change over the years, but they haven’t, at least not drastically. Of course, I quickly discovered that no one can just start out writing books and acting and make a living right off the bat, so I developed an interest in journalism, a form of writing that with more stable job opportunities, and decided I would always pursue it alongside acting.
I also developed an interest in possibly starting my own business one day, because writing and acting require flexibility, and you can’t get more flexible hours than the ones you give yourself as your own boss.
However, I also quickly learned that while no degree guarantees a job, that is even more true for any arts-related job. A Bachelor of Fine Arts will mean nothing to a director of a film. If you aren’t right for a part, no one will care where you studied. College is an opportunity to create connections, yes, but it is by no means a pathway to success in acting.
And as far as writing goes, most publications value experience over the specific degree you earned.
Besides, everyone scoffed at the idea of me studying theatre and told me journalism was “dead” and I would never make a living. They told me to get a degree in something, and that it wouldn’t matter in the end because I could get a job completely unrelated to that degree. All of this made me wonder, what does a degree even mean anymore?
Photo courtesy of returnofkings.com
When it came time to look for colleges, I was not too keen on the idea. I honestly did not see much point in going when my two passions were not conventional career paths. If everyone thought I was going to fail to get a stable career afterwards anyway, what was the point of spending thousands on a “worthless” degree?
My parents told me to just “change” my passions then. Find new ones. As if it were that simple. You can’t change your passions just like that. I tried my hardest to look at other majors, but none of them interested me enough for me to want to dedicate four years to studying them.
Now that I have ended up at UCF, (and believe me, I never thought I would) I am still stuck. I am currently “double majoring” in what’s really nothing yet, because I am both theatre and journalism pending. I thought choosing a college would be the hard part and that I’d have everything figured out once I got here. But nope, I am just as clueless as I was before.
You see, both acting and journalism are limited access majors, meaning you have to meet certain requirements and apply to get accepted. I always found it funny how the majors for careers everyone tells you will not make you any money are some of the most competitive to get into. It’s as if they are testing you to see if you’re ready to struggle and fail once you get out into the real world.
This spring, I will find out after I audition if I am accepted into the BFA acting program. If not, I will apply for journalism. If I am not accepted to either, I honestly don’t know what I will do. And that scares me.
I almost wish I were undeclared, because it’s easier to pick something safe when your heart hasn’t been set on two things your whole life. I cannot pick a third option just to “have a degree”. I cannot put myself through school learning something I never wanted to just for the sake of job security. Maybe I need to grow up and get a grip on reality, but I don’t want to. I never want to be driven solely by money or have a job that I hate. But I also want to make the most of college, and get something out of it that doesn’t feel worthless or a waste of time and money.
I don’t know what that will be yet, if anything, and I’m sure a lot of you feel the same way if your major isn’t the type that will lead you to a clear-cut career path. We will just have to take it one day at a time, do our best in whatever we are currently doing, get involved, seek job experience opportunities, and stay focused on the small goals we can attain while in school.
After all, they say college is about finding yourself. Maybe it will just take some of us a little bit longer, and college itself may or may not play a big role in our self-discovery. The path you take to get to where you want to be may not be anywhere close to the standard four years of school followed by an immediate job search, and that’s okay. You may transfer, enter the workforce early, take a break and come back, or seek other means of training or education that better suit your needs. It’s scary to think of going down an unconventional path, and I may have to, but if it gets me to where I want to be, that’s all that matters.
Cover photo courtesy of theodysseyonline.com