The Struggles of Being Undeclared

One of the reasons why thinking about college stressed me out so much is because I had no idea what I wanted to study. It seemed like everyone around me knew exactly what kind of career they wanted: a nurse, a medical examiner, a journalist, an accountant. I didn’t and still don’t have a dream career. I’m at a total loss for what I want to do with the rest of my adult life. I didn’t want to choose a random major to start off with so I decided to go in as undeclared.People will voice their opinion whether it’s positive or negative, and I have heard both when I tell people that I am undeclared. I’ve heard: “Don’t go in undeclared, you’ll end up having to go more than 4 years to get enough credits to graduate.” I’ve heard “That’s good! Take the time to explore and find which classes spark your interest.” I’ve also heard the dreaded: “So you’re undeclared, but what are you interested in?” Every time I hear a variation of that sentence I want to scream. If there was something I was interested in, I wouldn’t be undeclared. I didn’t choose to be undeclared just for the fun of it; I genuinely have no clue what I want to study or what kind of job I want in the future.It also isn’t helpful when people choose to tell me all the endless possibilities of what I could study. “You could be a lawyer or a psychologist. Oh! Do you want to study biology? Do you want to be a journalist?” Please don’t. I am very much aware of all the possibilities that are out there and I am very much aware that at this point in time I don’t feel strongly enough about any of them to pick one. Please stop asking me what I want to do because I’m not sure how many different ways I can say ‘I don’t know.’Sometimes being undeclared makes me want to just give up on school. It seems like everyone else is enjoying classes more than I am because their classes are actually specified to their major. I don’t have that and sometimes it feels like I’m back in high school, taking class just because I have to. I was told all throughout high school and even middle school that college will be so much better because you can finally pick what you want to learn about. But what happens when I still don’t know what I want to learn about?

I wish that I had a dream job or a passion that I wanted to pursue. It would make my life so much easier if I could declare a major that I was confident in and knew where it could lead me. But that isn’t the case, so for now I just have to continue to deal with all the struggles that come along with being undeclared and hope that I experience my academic revelation soon.

• college
• Framingham
• Framingham State
• framingham state university
• majors
• struggles
• undeclared