A few days ago I was talking with my sister about college life and the dreaded sophomore slump. I know sophomore year for me was hard for all sorts of reasons (check out probably my 1 and only facebook note). But one of the biggest transitions that I had sophomore year was deciding on a major.
I know some people would say that it doesn't matter what your major is in college. And to some extent I'd agree. But choosing a major in college should be more than just seeing which one falls out easiest senior year. Choosing a major is one of the biggest decisions you face from childhood to adolescence: till then its do what your parents say and whatever you can get away with. But choosing a major is all on you, and it has this huge implication of deciding the rest of your life! OK OK, what you major in will probably not decide the rest of your life. I think that needs repeating--what you major in will not decide the rest of your life. However, you will. And that's what this is about.
Choosing a major is the first opportunity you have to make a choice and decide what you want to do with the rest of your time in college, and to some extent, your life. The whole choose a major process isn't so much about choosing the classes you want to take, as it is about actually sitting down and asking yourself--what do I like to do? what am I passionate about? where would I love to be in a couple years? Some harder ones--what am I good at? what do I need to work on? All the above questions, tell us about ourselves and what drives us and makes us happy. And after answering some of them we can usually arrive at a goal: I want to be a doctor; I want to be a teacher; I want to be an astrophysicist (hehe). But, with most things in life, we do a good job at discouraging ourselves and making deciding on those goals extremely difficult (maybe not without good reason).
So, you want to be a doctor, but you look at your chemistry grades and they're just average B+ at best. So what do you think? "I can't be a doctor; if I want to be a doctor I should be making A's in chemistry. I should just teach Spanish; I'm good at that." This is where most folks get hung up. And I'll admit, I definitely reached that crossroad: between the easy way out and the mountain. But I thought about it, and ultimately, I chose the mountain. I thought about how I'd feel if I took the pass, and I'd feel like I cheated myself--that I was missing out on something I would've love doing. I followed what I was passionate about. And I have found that no amount of talent or aptitude is a substitute for passion.
Why? Because when you're passionate about what you do, you constantly assess yourself and you drive yourself to be better. It's like what I talked about in the Potential post--you may never feel you've reached the top, but that's because true potential is only achieved at life's end when you can look down from the mountaintop. Until then, there're lots of local mins and maxes. And if you are truly passionate and enjoy what you do, you will love every minute of it.
But, you may say you have two things you're passionate about, and you can't choose between one or the other. This goes back to the black and white post. Sometimes, you don't have to choose and there's an alternate solution. I loved languages in college, but ultimately decided not to major in one. But, I did continue taking them, and I'm still learning new ones to this day. So, though it is not my primary focus, it's still very much a part of my life. In life, sometimes the solutions aren't spelled out for us or we don't like choice A or choice B, so we have to see/make up the choice C or D that does work.
Then you say, what if I make a choice, and then realize it's not what I want. Well, congratulations you just learned a lot about yourself. Life's about learning, and we should strive to learn the lessons it throws at us as quickly and completely as possible or be doomed to repeat them. Making a wrong decision is fine; in some ways it's better than making the right one. It gives us the impetus to think harder about what we really want, and it narrows down the selection pool. The hardest part is admitting you made a wrong decision. But when you realize that your time is finite, and it seems you're wasting it on something you won't be able to look back on in self-satisfaction/actualization; when you realize that you can decide to try something else, you've made the first step, and you can choose to start anew.
Life is too short to waste your time doing something you detest. I understand life will throw curve balls at us, or that we'll walk into them from time to time, but you should never lose sight of the answers to those questions above that all hit on: what am I passionate about?
I haven't lost sight despite unforeseeable circumstances and guess what: I am enjoying what I'm doing, and I thank God I had the balls to follow it.
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