As college students, we have all cringed upon hearing that same question over and over – “What’s your major?” Whether it is coming from our family, new classmates on campus, or prospective employers, we just can’t seem to avoid being asked. Now, maybe I sound a little dramatic. I’m sure for many other college students, this is a very easy question to answer. I remember meeting other students my freshman year that were totally confident in their path of study and would share their medical school or MBA plans with anyone who dared to ask. But for me, the most I could muster as a response was “I’m undecided.”
As a freshman, being undecided wasn’t so bad; I could take all sorts of different classes and explore all of my many interests without being restricted to one specific path. I figured that eventually something would stand out that would make me say, “This is what I want to do for the rest of my life.” (Surprise – that never happened.) I could have gone through college this way and been totally fine with it, until my advisor told me that I was required to declare a major midway through sophomore year.
So in September of sophomore year I really started to feel the pressure to decide where my education would take me. I hadn’t yet had that “Aha!” moment I was hoping for, so when the time came to declare, I was not entirely confident in my choice. I went with Communications; I enjoyed the classes and thought it would be a field of study that would allow me to choose from a variety of career paths. I soon realized that while my shiny new major wasn’t necessarily bad, it didn’t entirely fit with all of my passions.
It was then that I decided I should find a second major, or at least a minor. I tried out Economics for a few semesters, which (as I seem to say about everything) wasn’t so bad, but still wasn’t “It” for me. I thought about every possible option for my future: I could get my MBA and work in business, or maybe I could enroll in an accelerated nursing program and get my masters, or if neither of those sound good, I could always go back to school and get my teaching degree. I was feeling so much pressure to have my life figured out that I was willing to consider absolutely anything, even if it wasn’t a path that I was in love with.
As a junior, I have to say I still don’t have it all figured out, but what I have recently discovered is that it’s okay to be undecided. If my major isn’t enough I can take classes in other fields of study. Who cares if I have a declared second major? If I find that I hate the job I end up at, who’s stopping me from leaving and finding the job I love? The important lesson that I wish I had known three years ago is this: College isn’t about confining yourself to one strictly defined path. It is more important to explore any and all of your passions than to spend your time worrying how your “indecisiveness” appears to your family, professors, and type-A peers.
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