A few months ago, I felt as though I was at a standstill. I could choose a path my family had carved out for me, or I could be more creative and follow something that seemed more in tune with how I truly felt. I imagined that whichever I chose, afterward, I would always look back and wonder if I made the right choice.
Well, the choice has been made, and really, it wasn’t that simple. It came down to this: if I kept forcing myself to take classes that disinterested me and stressed me out for the sole purpose of feeling smarter, this college path wouldn’t be around for long.
In the end, the choice wasn’t major in something you like OR major in something to make your parents proud. In the end, it was choose your own sanity, or face the consequences.
So I chose psychology. Partly because I thought it would be easier than computer science and would allow me to learn about leadership through club executive positions. Partly because Intro to Psych was the only class where I went home and shared with my friends what I had learned that day. But mostly because I thought I would drop out of college if I didn’t choose something that made me actually excited to go to class rather than overwhelmed with the fear of everything going wrong.
What did I learn from this situation? That had I tuned in to how I felt much earlier and stopped questioning myself so much, the answer to the three-year-long major debacle could have ended sooner. Instead of chasing an ideal self who was interested in all these boring stem majors and someone who could maintain the perfect GPA in classes that I skipped like no other, I should’ve just stopped resisting. But also, more importantly, and as many others said to me during my debacle, choosing a major isn’t an end all be all. It isn’t the choice that changes the trajectory of the career long term. It is a mere stepping stone.
Thus, if you find yourself in a similar situation, stop thinking about everything you should or shouldn’t be and ask yourself the last time you were interested and excited about the material you learned in class. And then commit.
Don’t worry. There will be much bigger career decisions down the road to worry about.