Leaving high school and starting college is a transition. For some people, it’s an easy transition. For others, it isn’t an easy one. However, one thing that isn’t easy for people to know for certain heading into college is what they want to do with their career.
Finding a degree that is right for you is very hard to do, especially when an educational institution is making you plan the rest of your life at age 18. Most people at that age don’t know what they want to do as a career. I know that was the case for me.
I spent my first two years of college doing the community college route. During those two years at Community college, I flipped flopped between three degrees because I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. It was a lot of pressure to have to know what you want to do with your life at 18.
At first, I was a communications major. With that, I wanted to chase my childhood dream of being a sports journalist. However, that was short-lived, as I had people around me convince me that it wasn’t going to be a good career because of the money. I ended up switching my major to graphic design because I was good with computers and using different features on computers. I learned quickly that it was not the career for me because I did not enjoy it.
I then thought to myself that I would love to be a writer, preferably an author or poet. So I started on that journey and even self-published my own book. However, time went along and I realized something wasn’t right and something was missing from my life. That’s when I realized what it was that I wanted to do.
I have learned a valuable lesson from a self-taught philosophy; “If you don’t do what you love, then you won’t love what you do.” From the moment I learned that, I decided not to listen to what other people say about what I should do with my life and to switch out of both the graphic design major and the English major. If you let other people tell you how to live your life, then it isn’t your life.
That is when I decided to go back to what I originally loved to do — journalism. It was the thing that made me the happiest. It was the thing that made me the most comfortable. It was the thing that I enjoyed the most. So, with that being said, I am currently a communications major looking to hopefully get into the sports journalism world as a sports writer or even a sports editor. I also do some play-by-play and would love the opportunity to do that as well.
I am in my third year of college and just figured out what I want to do with my life. It took a lot of time and effort, but I ended up figuring it out by just listening to my heart. Some people are still deciding where they want their life to go. That’s OK. No one should be pressured to choose something they have to do for the rest of their lives before they figure out what they want to do for the rest of their lives. When you are forced to choose what you have to do is when you make decisions that you regret for the rest of your life.
