| February 7th, 2018
Switching Up
By: journeymagazine
By| Jaclyn Harold
College is a rite of passage. Some people come in, and through their passing they stick with the same friends, the same dreams and the same major. That is not meant to sound like a bad thing. Those people are sure of themselves and driven by the force of certainty.
For the others passing through, college is the chance to find those friends and that dream that will drive them to that perfect major. You will not always have everything figured out; things get confusing, and that is okay.
Picking the right major is like finding the perfect foundation. Just imagine when you pick a color too bright or too dark, and here you are ready to go out and your foundation does not match your skin. What a setback…
Now put that same thought into picking the wrong major. You are uninspired, your performance is not matching up to your capabilities, and ultimately, you are unhappy with the results.
It’s never too late to make a life changing decision.
“Selecting the right major is extremely important for a myriad of reasons,” says Dr. Jamie Davis, director of student support services. “Students in their right major will feel more connected to their professors and will find sincere interests in their classes,” he continued.
You come into college with a lot of the high school mentality still attached. It is safe to say that the things you liked in high school may lose their value-making room for newer desires to emerge.
During this “four-year experience”, you will meet all types of people from different cultures. That experience of “new and exciting” will bring about a new person in you; a more mature version of you that will light the fire of hidden talents and aspirations.
“I changed my major twice. I went from early elementary education to political science. I realized from that change that I did not necessarily want to teach, but I found that being a counselor would be a better fit for me,” said Arielle Shaw, a Florida A&M University Alumnae. “I didn’t have counselors pushing me to go to college or to make good educational decisions, so I would like to be that for someone else.”
Choosing a major determines the career of your life. It is never too late to go back to college and major in something else, but most people that pick the right major don’t have to go back under another one.
The sole purpose of college, other than education is to prepare you for the real world after. Your curriculum is like an internship. You are taught how to complete tasks through software or with formulas, then you must show what you have retained by performing similar tasks on your own; without pay of course.
Professors act as your bosses, with their syllabus being their expectations and requirements for the job. Your major, which is the most important aspect of this analogy is your job. Do you stay stuck in a job that you are unhappy working? Would you continue interning for a company that you don’t feel is prompting your growth? Well those are questions you can ask yourself if you replace those words with major.
It is scary to be in college for three years, walking through the days with the mindset of getting by. Barely passing classes and feeling unenthused changes the course of many students during their college career. Until you can really asset the situation and determine your strengths and your goals, and that is when the confidence will appear.
Ashamed doesn’t even begin to explain how I felt coming into classes knowing that I was probably the oldest person in the room. It wasn’t until I realized that I was much happier with my decision to change, that I was able to accept that regardless, changing my major three years into college was the best decision that I could have made.
If the fear of change is lurking in the corners of your mind because your journey will take longer than 4 years, release it… Change is good. Especially when it’s the type of change that will allow success in your future. Accept the new identity.
