I never thought I’d be writing about choosing a college major, I didn’t think I’d ever be able to finally decide on a major myself. Usually I’m the one reading articles on “How To Choose a Major”, or taking an absurd amount of personality and aptitude tests to tell me which career path would be best for me. But if you’re struggling to choose a major, my best advice is to look within yourself for the answers.
I came to college with the idea of pursuing a major in Political Science. A month into my first semester I started to really contemplate a major in Allied Health. Then I took some Economics classes that I liked and thought about pursuing a major in that. But then, I took a public speaking course and I loved it. So much so, that I took a course on the principles of communication the following semester; I loved that class too. After taking these two courses, I found myself much more interested in Communications than any of the other subject areas I’d studied. Down deep, I knew that a major in Communications would be right for me, but I had a negative stigma in the back of my mind about it, simply based off of what I’ve heard from parents, other peers, and so on, about the “unimportance” of Liberal Arts degrees in correspondence with degrees in STEM or Business. I contemplated applying into the Business school, not because I genuinely wanted to, but because I felt that would “look better” on a resume than a major in Liberal Arts.
I think there’s an issue with that, though. While there’s nothing wrong with taking your time in declaring a major, being undecided was really difficult for me. I put so much unnecessary pressure on myself, and started to believe that there was no purpose for me to even be in college if I didn’t have an established plan of study. But now I realize that’s untrue. We’re in college to broaden our knowledge and expand our horizons. For the first time, we have the ability to choose where our studies will take us. So, why do so many of us force ourselves into pursuing majors that we don’t really enjoy? Just by taking more Communications classes this semester, I feel liberated. By declaring a major in an area that genuinely interests me, I find myself eager to learn, and that I’ve found my niche. This feeling has led to a new found excitement for future possibilities in an area that interests me.
So, if you’re struggling to choose a major like I was, take a minute to reflect. The major that’s right for you is probably in front of you, it’s just time for you to actually pursue it. Leave any fears or stigmas you have behind. You’ll never find your niche by forcing yourself into doing something you don’t enjoy, you’ll make your college experience miserable, and that’s not the purpose of being here. Yeah, personality tests and Buzzfeed quizzes are fun, but if you want real answers, you should sit down with yourself and think about what you really want.