Picture this:
The year is 2016 and you’re applying to college amidst the presidential election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. You apply as a Political Science major because you took AP US History and you wrote a Facebook post in opposition of Donald Trump that got a few more likes than your usual posts.
The year is now 2017 and it’s the summer before you go to college. The world is at your fingertips, and so is Netflix. You watch a few too many episodes of The Flash and you want to be just like the fearless heroine who writes groundbreaking articles about the world around her. Therefore, you change your major to English before you even arrive to college.
The year is still 2017 and you have just became comfortable at your quaint, southern, private university. A grand total of around 3000 people attend this university and you start to notice that the most intelligent people you have came across are biology majors. In order to keep up, you change your major to biology without having previously taken a biology course. You think it’s a great choice and you talk yourself into using your biology degree to go to pharmacy school, even though math and science are your least favorite subjects.
The year is now 2018 and you finally take your first biology course as a biology major. You fail said course. You also decide you need to transfer from your quaint, southern, private university because they only offer 30 majors that you are barely interested in, and the chicken farm down the road not only gives you bad vibes, but bad smells.
The year still 2018, and you have arrived at UNCC’s vast, beautiful, diverse campus. You decide to change your major to special education, because you have a passion for helping people with disabilities and you have always wanted to become an educator.
“Why have I never thought of this before?, you ask yourself, as you genuinely enjoy (and pass) your first education courses.
Suddenly, an all too familiar feeling arises in your soul – that feeling is uncertainty.
The year is now 2019, and the person I described in the above paragraphs is actually me. I’m still a special education major and I intend to graduate with a degree in special education and a minor in writing, rhetoric, and digital studies. While I am as confident in this decision as I believe I possibly can be, I also have come to realize that it’s okay if I don’t go to class everyday fueled by an immense and overwhelming passion for my future career. It is ok if I question my decision to become a teacher and explore other career options that don’t involve teaching at all. It is ok if I graduate from college and use my minor more than my major. It is ok if I graduate college and immediately move to a faraway island and never use my degree a single day in my life.
I am an entirely different person now than I was the day I applied for college in 2016 as a political science major. I am an entirely different person now than I was when I changed my major to biology to keep up with my friends. I will also be an entirely different person the day I graduate college than the person I am today, writing this article. College is a time for changing your mind, your path, and accepting that life RARELY works out the way you thought it would. I’ve had four majors and attended two universities, and I am still on track to graduate in four years.
If there is one thing I hope you took away from this article, it is that:
If you are going to stress about something, please don’t let that stress be about your ever changing mind.