The Trials of Finding Your Passion in College

As a humanities major living with a bunch of pre-med hopefuls, I’m no stranger to the inferiority complex that many non-STEM majors feel at a school like UC Davis. While everyone else is doing back-breaking chemistry problem sets and labs, I’m writing analytic essays and creative writing pieces and having a relatively grand ol’ time.

I want to stress that it took me a long time to get to this point. I wasn’t always so secure in my English major-ing, and it took a bit of trial-and-error for me to realize that this was the right fit for me.

When we get to college, many of our decisions tend to be driven by the expectations of our families, peers, and cultural norms. If you’ve been hearing your entire life that medical school is your destiny, or that humanities majors all eventually become Starbucks baristas, it’s hard to feel that you’re making any real decisions on your own.

These same pressures ultimately led to me trying out a biology class in the desperate hopes that I could pursue a second degree, a STEM-oriented major that would legitimize my college education. After all, I didn’t want to spend all this tuition money and end up making frappuccinos. After two torturous weeks in the lower-division biology class, I dropped it. There was no way in hell I could’ve done anything helpful in the science fields. I felt utterly hopeless.

The best way to truly discover your passion in college, according to all of the Internet, is to become involved and try new things. So, I did exactly that. I put on some leggings, a pair of cute socks, and a sports bra, then proceeded to have the bitterly humiliating experience of going to a dance team audition with no prior dance experience. While everyone was doing pirouettes across the gym floor, I was showing off my semi-passable dougie to the dancers waiting in line. When I realized that maybe I was in over my head, I made a very cool and totally believable excuse about how I forgot to turn in a very important assignment, which allowed me to duck out early. I called my mom in my dorm and cried. It was pretty embarrassing, frankly.

After a few weeks, however, I started to feel like the whole fiasco wasn’t that bad; I got to have the funny story and life experience to show for it. I was inspired to try to find something that really suited me.

I’d always been an avid writer, and so I started to look for ways to hone that talent instead of trying to mold myself into someone or something that I just wasn’t. I discovered Her Campus and the school newspaper, and the rest was history. I got to meet a bunch of like-minded writers and develop connections within my major.

Maybe it was just me, but I didn’t realize that I could simply do what I liked or what I excelled in. I always thought there was some sort of other formula for happiness that I didn’t understand. The reality is, if you’re looking for your passion in college, all you need to do is explore both the familiar and the unknown. Somewhere, between all of that mess, you’ll find exactly what you’re meant to do.

             

• college life
• hobbies
• humanities
• student life
• writing