One of the most intimidating parts about college is that the world expects you to choose your career path for the rest of your life at 17-18 years old. It is the first time in your life when the question “what do you want to be when you grow up?” requires a legitimate answer. It’s the question that adults ask from practically the day you can form sentences. When I was in Kindergarten, my teacher asked me and my classmates that same question and we had an entire day-long event where we dressed up as our “future career” and all of our parents came and took photos.
I am going to safely assume that most of you, like me, did not end up choosing the career path that you chose when you were five years old (A veterinarian? First off, I am very allergic to cats and secondly, anything medical makes me queasy). What I actually ended up choosing is journalism. Now, how am I supposed to know if I made the right choice or not?
When choosing my major, the first thing I did was rule out the options that were definitively not for me. In my case that was anything requiring heavy math and sciences (engineering, biology, nursing, etc.). Throughout middle and high school, I enjoyed studying English and history over anything else. History was interesting, but I could not picture an enjoyable, reliable career path in that field that I wanted to commit to. So, that left English.
Writing has always been something I have felt like I am really good at, and something I really loved. But could I do that for a job? For a career? Forever? I honestly wasn’t sure if that was a realistic goal for my future. After my mom and I had both done too much research and had talked it over, we landed on the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University. It is nationally ranked, not too far from home and journalism is a growing field – it seemed like a no brainer.
My inspiration for this article came today on my walk to class. I was on my way to social media introduction and realized that I was excited! Don’t get me wrong, there are days, classes, etc. that I dread going to, but I want to focus on why.
This semester, I have three classes that genuinely excite me. The reason being is that they are all journalism-related courses. Courses that are specific to my area of study as opposed to general education requirements. That’s how I know I chose the right major for me. When I am studying journalistic concepts and am practicing journalistic writing, I feel like I am in my element.
I would say that I am one of the lucky ones. I chose a major and it just happened to be right for me first try. A large portion of students don’t have that experience. Which is okay! There is no shame in changing your major, it’s better to change your mind now than be miserable down the road. Moral of the story, if you find yourself going to classes and it doesn’t spark joy, or make you feel like you found your purpose, I would say it’s worth exploring other options. Especially freshman or sophomore year, a lot of your classes are general education requirements anyway!
