When deciding what to major in, it seems that people have this life altering experience that leads them to their decision. After going through twelve years of school, I always assumed one day I would wake up and it would just come to me. I thought I would take a class and discover “oh, this is what I want to do.” In reality, I got to senior year liking every class equally and never feeling my calling towards a certain career.
When applying to colleges, I simply decided the science field could be something I wanted. But it wasn’t really the science field I was after. It was a feeling of wanting to prove to my teachers and peers that I could handle the rigorous science courses.
Writing my essays for college was one of the only things that made me feel better about applying. Through all the chaos of tours and visits, writing essays was something I controlled. It was something that gave me a space to put all my ideas down, letting them leave my head and be put on paper. While all of my friends dreaded opening up their computer to write those essays, I found so much joy in them. And no matter if I got into every college I applied to or not, the pride I felt for those essays couldn’t be taken away from me.
As soon as I opened my college acceptance letters, a lot of my stress started to melt away. Especially when I decided to attend UW, the thought of my major got pushed to the back of my mind. It only really hit me that I was majoring in science when I picked out my classes for my first fall quarter. With my schedule filled with chemistry, public health and labs, I started to feel scared about what I had decided on.
After a couple weeks of fall quarter passed, I knew that science was definitely not for me. I turned back to what I felt happiest and most free doing, which was writing. Not only had I started to write for Her Campus, but I had also shared some of my writing with family and friends. As my network of writing became bigger, so did my creativity and ideas for my future. For perhaps the first time in my life, I found something that I loved learning about and going to class for. If college applications didn’t require essays, I might never have realized how much I truly love to write. So although that was a stressful period of my life, it led me here. All I can hope is that I continue to discover things I love that lead me to a happier future.