You are not your major 

While everyone else in my high school senior class was stressing out over college applications and acceptance letters, I was doing the opposite. By opposite, I mean that I announced to my parents that I had zero interest in continuing my education by going to college. This resulted in a months long battle that consisted of cheap shots, statements that I thought were clever by ended up having an opposite effect, and crying. Lots and lots of crying.

I had nothing against college. It sounded like a fun time, and I was happy to witness the joy of my friends as they received their acceptance letters to their dream schools. I just didn’t believe it was for me. The whole school experience didn’t mesh well with me, and I wasn’t up for four more years of sitting in cold classrooms filled with empty stares, learning about something that would only apply to my life for about 18 weeks. Also, while some people knew exactly what their major was going to be from the moment they were born, I had zero leads. I felt like I would be going to college just for the experience, and that sounded like a waste of my parent’s money.

The battle was over in mid May, when I finally decided to go for an AA degree at the local community college. If you know me, you know that I actually ended up loving college, stayed for four and a half years instead of just two, and got a Bachelor’s degree. College was one of the best experiences of my life, and I’m so glad I changed my mind and went for it, but here’s a little known fact — after all my time there, I never found that perfect major. I’m being completely honest when I say that it was pure luck that I got into the major I got my degree in, and that I only chose it because I was running out of options and it just sounded cool. Although the classes were enjoyable and I learned a lot of interesting things while meeting some great people, I never had a true attachment for the subject. When asked where I saw myself in five years, doing something in that field didn’t seem to fit the picture I was drawing in my head.

This internal struggle came full circle a couple of months after graduation, when I started to look for post grad jobs. The feeling that I didn’t belong in the field that I studied for years kept coming back to me, stronger than ever, and it wasn’t until I got my writing published for the first time that the feeling subsided. I realized that I wanted to keep doing this. I wanted to keeping going on this path of being an honest writer. I finally figured out that the one thing I saw myself doing five years from now had little to do with my degree. After freaking out a little about wasting thousands of dollars on something that I was afraid I wasn’t ever going to use, I came to the conclusion that a degree is simply a piece of paper that has the ability to get you noticed and to open doors. You’re not in a marriage with it, and their won’t be any hard feelings if you decided to take a different path other than the one you planned while in school. I stopped believing that it was a waste of money; if anything, it was money well spent, because I wouldn’t have been able to get some writing jobs had I not studied what I did, and college overall taught me more things that my 18 year old self thought possible.

A character on a popular show said once that you have a better chance at winning the lottery than finding the one. I believe this applies to majors as well. There’s only about a one in a million chance that you’ll find the perfect one in four years.The majority of people often find themselves like me, studying something they don’t particularly enjoy but keep going simply because they need to graduate with something. If this is you, the best advice I can give is to create a list of every single possible career path you’d like to peruse, regardless if it matches your degree or not, and include the things that you find yourself doing in your spare time. Don’t limit yourself. Remember, the degree helps you open the doors of opportunity. It’s the journey that you decide to embark on that matters.