Senior year of high school, remember that? Many decisions were made for you, yet there was little to no time to actually enjoy what was happening. That was it, you had arrived at the time in your life that most coming-of-age films heavily romanticize. There’s always a scene in which the main character stresses over their university acceptance letters, but soon enough, the plot focuses on simpler things like who they want to go to prom with or how they will pass the semester. The process of worrying about university was a mere subplot; the perfect ending to the story, but not the full picture. Life doesn’t really imitate art in this scenario. Sure, you have drama in school, you pick a color for your prom dress and you worry about your precalc class sinking your GPA, but there’s a bigger decision creeping just around the corner. In some cases, a nosy family member will be the first to ask the million-dollar question: “What will be your major?” Oh yes, because it makes perfect sense to ask a teenager what career they will dedicate the rest of their lives to. The second you utter a semi-specific answer, everyone and their ancestors will hold it against you. You’re the new family doctor, teacher or engineer, and you haven’t even taken your basic courses yet. I’m here to tell you that it’s perfectly valid to think the world will fall apart when you realize that your heart isn’t in it. So many people seem invested in a rash decision made by a person who wasn’t even legally allowed to drink at the time. But the only opinion that should influence your future is your own.
If you’re a fan of romance and participate in the act of shipping characters together, you’re familiar with the term ‘slow burn.’ It’s about the drawn-out progression in which a feeling slowly builds, growing over time until it is impossible to ignore (calm down, we can discuss slow burn relationships on another occasion). Beyond love, there are other emotions that we try to suppress, placing them in the back of our minds until their effect on us is far too evident. The process in which we find out our major isn’t a fit for us can be a slow burn. It starts off small. If you picked a major simply because it would be accepted by your parents, you convince yourself that you’ll grow fond of it. Maybe you were able to pick a major that you had always dreamed of. We think that we all understand what we’re signing ourselves up for, but life always seems to find a way of humbling us. Once you start taking classes that are specific to your major, the idea of your future career begins to take shape. You’re handed a syllabus in each of your courses, and you start to look at the topics. Sometimes the warning bells make their dramatic entrance at this point of the semester. You can’t seem to like most of the things that you will learn, but hey, give it a chance! It isn’t until you’re crying while writing an essay for midterms because you can’t see yourself in that career for the rest of your life, that you validate the signs of distress.
We all feel uncertainty during our first years of university and we silently question ourselves in a near constant loop, even when we lie through our teeth saying that we love our majors. Some people don’t have to lie, because they do fall in love with their major and have their family’s support to top it all off. Good for them! But this is just not the typical university experience. Nothing can prepare us for how we will react when we try to picture ourselves in what we are studying once we learn what these majors truly entail. You really get to know yourself when you are majoring in something that makes you feel like a crooked puzzle piece, trying to force your way into a space where you don’t belong. I am one of those people who had to pick a major that didn’t reflect what I wanted out of my life. I knew I wasn’t doing myself any favors, but I hoped that I would grow to like it. Through the years, I have met people in my classes that have shared their own “major” meltdown journeys with me. There’s nothing more comforting than sharing an existential crisis with other sleep deprived students who just want to pursue what they’re passionate about.
There’s really no specific timing for this crushing realization. Sometimes you take a random elective and it makes you feel on cloud nine. It provides you with a sense of belonging that you maybe never felt in your own faculty, or you see a curriculum that you really like and you’re eager to learn about an entirely different skill. Or you just hate your classes. Showing up feels like a chore and not even the idea of getting paid for it brings you peace. You think of your old hobbies and your dreams, struggling to find pieces of yourself in this possible future outcome. Maybe you want to change majors and you don’t really know what your next step is. Guilt spreads like a fever when you think about how to explain yourself to those around you. In their eyes, your future was already set, but their reactions can’t matter more than your own happiness.
Denial could be a side effect of this fear. We work overtime to be that professional that was idealized by the hasty decision-making of an adolescent. Changing your major could mean starting off fresh and that can be scary. Perhaps you’re almost finishing and you worry that you will be mocked. Maybe you’re just starting and think that you need to give your major more time. I feel that deep inside, we always know when something isn’t right for us. At times, we lack empathy with ourselves. We should be just as understanding with ourselves as we are with others when they express their desire to change majors. Why do we validate those around us if we constantly reject our own intuitions?
If you feel identified with this article, I’m proud that you have given yourself the freedom to question your decisions. Nothing in this life should be set in stone. Be willing to explore other areas of your life. Take a random elective course, enroll in courses that make you feel excited to go to university. If you need to take some time to figure out what you want, that’s completely fine. There isn’t anything wrong with you searching for what makes you passionate. We should all take our own time to find what we want to do with our lives; there’s no rush to any finish line. Just take a deep breath, and trust that everything is going to be fine.