It’s junior year.
I have four semesters left to earn all the credits I need.
I’ve changed my major three times.
I have two academic years left to figure out what I want to do.
I have one summer left before I start working full time.
And on top of all that, we’re living through a pandemic. Ask me if I’m stressed, I dare you.
I came into my freshman year at Virginia Tech as a neuroscience major, which is drastically different from where I am now. I decided after one semester and failing pre-calculus that I wasn’t cut out for four years of grueling biology and chemistry classes, so I switched to communications, a much easier route. I then also added my second major, Spanish, and felt good about the changes I made in my education.
After one semester of communications and learning more about what would later become the School of Communication, I decided to switch my major yet again to multimedia journalism. Now in my sophomore year of college, I felt confident about the next two years and where I would eventually end up after school, even though I didn’t quite know where that was yet. All that mattered to me was that I was taking classes that actually interested me and had professors I enjoyed seeing every day. I came to learn that my professors actually cared about me and took the time to get to know me, especially the ones I had more than once. I loved walking across campus knowing that I finally felt at home and like what I was doing had a purpose, oblivious to the fact that all of it would change in just a few months.
That confidence diminished completely once COVID-19 hit this past March and we were sent home. Even though I had gotten to know my professors for the first two months of class, online learning was a change I wasn’t prepared for. My grades began to drop, and after being a Dean’s List student for the past year, it was a blow to my self-esteem that resulted in a lack of confidence about my choices. Doubt settled in and I began to wonder if I was really cut out for my major, even though I had loved it just a few months before.
Now in my first semester of my junior year, I feel even less confident than I did before. Being completely online has changed my view of school completely, and I have no motivation to do any of my work even though I know I have to do it. I want to be successful and I want to fulfill my goals, but it seems impossible now. In order to get where I want in life, there are so many steps I have to take first — internships, earning my degrees, job applications — but even just thinking about those steps overwhelms me to the point where I just don’t.
Just like the Sunday scaries are a real thing, so are the junior year scaries, and they’re even more amplified this year due to the chaos and uncertainty happening all around us. Before COVID-19 hit, I was just settling into my majors and felt confident about the path I was heading down. But now, I feel nothing but uncertainty about what I’m doing and what I want to pursue. How am I supposed to focus on something as minuscule as my education when there are issues much bigger than me happening on a daily basis? A pandemic, racial injustice, climate change, an election year — these are just the beginning. I know I’ll get where I need to be one day but it’s just too hard to think about right now.