Your life feels like it’s finally beginning once you hit college. You’re on your own for the first time. There’s no one to tell you when to eat, sleep, study, or get out of your sweatpants (which is a staple college outfit). Yes, your freshman year you’re sharing a dorm with someone, and you might even be the following year. But when you move into your first apartment, you really feel free. 

Many students settle on a major by their sophomore year, but not everyone. Narrowing down interests may be difficult; it wasn’t too challenging for me to pick a major. I always loved reading and writing, while it was on the back burner in life, was something I enjoyed too. Picking English as a major was easy for me. The hard part was, and still is, figuring out what I want to do with my degree after I graduate. 

Rewind a little: most people are 18 when they enter college. Knowing exactly what you want to do at 18 is a little cuckoo banana balls if you ask me. At 18 you’ve only just become an adult (a lot of us are still adults in training at this point). This is the time to explore your interests and the world. Figure out your likes and dislikes, go through highs and lows, and make mistakes to learn. 

There are so many majors to choose from. Hundreds depending on the school you attend. If you have a bunch of different interests it’s overwhelming and hard to pick one thing. It’s why people might change their major 2 or 3 times give or take. That’s completely normal. I never felt like it was talked about much though. While people would say students change majors all the time, it can also feel like you shouldn’t or you’re being judged if you do. 

There are similar sentiments and feelings when you’re in the last two years of college and you don’t know what you want to do after. 

And I think that’s completely ok. The more people I talk to the more I realize many people didn’t know what they wanted to do till years after they graduated. They took jobs they thought they would like only to discover where their true interests lie later on. A lot of the pressure I feel is internal pressure I’m putting on myself. It’s not my friends or family. I always thought that by the time my senior year hit, I would know exactly what I wanted to do for the following years of my life, but now that I’ve I’m here I’m only finding new pathways I want to explore.

I can tell you now that I’m finally beginning to feel like I have narrowed down the amount of pathways I’m interested in. And I’m comfortable with the few that remain. I’m applying to jobs in a few different fields, some of which I’m more interested in than others. As my senior year continues I’m almost certain I’ll have more moments of panic about not knowing what I’m doing. 

That’s the beautiful part of your 20s. It’s the mistakes, the uncertainties, growing, and learning from every little thing you’ll experience. 

Senior year. 

Stressful for so many reasons.

I still don’t know what I want to do for the next 40 years, and for now, I’m content with that.

• Instagram
• Mail