I have to admit, the title is a bit misleading. Over the summer before I started my third year of college, I decided to change the concentration of my biospsychology major from pre-medical studies to graduate studies. While it seems like a small (and mostly insignificant change), it completely alters the curriculum required to graduate. Before, I was required to take physics, organic chemistry, and biochemistry, completely voiding the “psychology” aspect of my degree for intense science classes I frankly have no interest in. I love psychology and I love my program: I think it is fascinating to see how the humanities and sciences come together. However, sticking with the pre-med curriculum was sucking the joy out of the college experience: I was miserable.
Changing your major is scary. I had many sessions of calling my parents trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I’ve spent two years of my life putting 100% into a degree I didn’t want for a career I was uncertain I wanted to go into. As much as I love and respect
medicine, I hate the education process to become a physician. Gruelling years of medical school (which you only have a small chance of getting into after spending hundreds of dollars on the MCAT, applications, and interviews), residency (and don’t forget you only have a small chance of getting the residency you actually want), and passing licensing exams. By the time you get a career, you’re in hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and have to spend part of your practice fighting with health insurance companies and having to face the cruel realities of medicine in America. For someone like me where I wasn’t certain that was what I wanted, it just looked more and more unappealing. I was trying to convince myself of the mindset that staying on the pre-med path will keep my options open, but I was so unhappy.
Studying abroad in the spring really helped me open my eyes. As we were walking around London, touring medical centers and speaking to physicians, I realized that this was not something I wanted to do. When we finally went to Cambridge University and toured their campus, learning information about their labs and research, I was fascinated. It was then that I realized I needed to stop torturing myself and switch over to graduate studies.
Now, I’m taking biology classes that are far more interesting to me than physics has ever been. I’m getting to take psychology courses that allow me to have more creative freedom with assignments and learn more about myself. When I call my parents to give them updates, they always say, “I can tell you are so much happier” before hanging up. It was a long battle fighting with myself and giving up on a dream of being a physician that I’ve had since being a kid, and I’m still unsure of what I want to do with my life after I graduate, but I am so much more confident that this is where I belong. Maybe one day I’ll be a psychologist, helping people in ways a physician can’t, or a scientist, working on my PhD in groundbreaking research, but, for now, I am finally beginning to love learning again.