Going into my freshman year, I had this plan to be a business major due to the fact that I come from a first-generation background. It was honestly the first major that I had thought of, and it was the major I thought I was going to graduate with because it had seemed like a logical choice for my future. This is an issue that I have seen a lot, of people going through similar situations where they are coming from a family where they are the first in their family to graduate high school and go to college.
It was not only until I had finally gotten to college that I realized I don’t need to know what I want to do right away. At only 18 I had moved across the country in hopes of starting a new life where I would finally be able to be independent. Talking to my advisor about my options had really helped me understand that if I was going to become this independent person, I need to be able to make my own decisions, and not constantly listen to the people around me because what I did was going to shape what my future looked like.
I have had the same repetitive conversations with people due to the fact that they had felt the similar pressure of choosing a major as me. It was only in my second semester of college that I realized it was okay that I was uncertain about the future. Young adults go through 13 years of school, and then they are told to choose a career path right after high school and grow up. There is always this stigma that you need to have your life figured out right away, and slowly the media is starting to change this.
There are all these new job opportunities that have never existed before, that you may have never heard of until you got to college. You need to be able to explore your options and understand that you are not alone in this idea of wanting to learn something new before you graduate. Join clubs, and take classes that you never knew would interest you to be able to understand what you want your future to look like. This is going to allow you to learn more about yourself, and have a better grasp of who you are as this new young adult. Take a deep breath, and think about what you want versus what society has told you to conform to.