I was not one of those lucky souls who entered college with an unshakable faith in my chosen major. I had declared a major in music back in the spring of my senior year in order to get into the program, but I had my reservations. I loved to sing and had taken lessons all through high school, as well as being involved in two choirs and auditioning for every musical role and solo opportunity I could. But deep down, I knew I wanted something more than a life of practicing and auditioning. As a senior in high school, though, I honestly did not know what that something more could be.
High school, as our guidance counselors constantly reminded us, was a chance to begin to “find ourselves.” We were encouraged to enroll in sports and fine arts programs, to take as many honors and AP classes we could, and to make time to eat dinner with our families and feed the homeless on the weekends. However, we all knew the real reason we were being encouraged to participate in all of these endeavors — to build up our college applications. Our attempts to appear well-rounded for the admissions officers often forced us into activities we did not want to do. Yet paradoxically, our efforts to find a place among other applicants also forced us into specific niches of interest. Disciplines like engineering and fine arts have such rigid course work that, in order to graduate in four years, high school seniors are advised to enter those programs immediately.
While the benefit of an on-time graduation is advantageous, it often creates the assumption that students need to spend all of their time trying to make themselves look appealing to those specific programs. The end result is that several students begin their college careers feeling locked into disciplines they aren’t entirely sure they want to be in, and often by the time they decide to change majors they end up a year behind anyway.
Although I was a music major on paper, I basically entered college undecided. Every day I would imagine what it would be like to take a class about politics or literature instead of introduction to piano. It took me a full year to make the leap and change my major to history, because I spent most of that year trying to find a way to make my music major more inclusive of other disciplines. But in majors as time-demanding as music, engineering or architecture, it is hard to find time to satisfy other interests. It is wonderful if you are dedicated to one of these majors — you know what you want to do and don’t mind doing it to the exclusion of other interests, which certainly shows passion and commitment. For the rest of us with a few more questions, though, being bound to such a program can be incredibly stifling.
I am not one to advocate spending four or more years of college taking nothing but lower-level classes and not trying to find an area of interest. I do, however, think it is wise to make sure that you give yourself room to breathe and to learn, especially in the early years of college. For those of you who, like me, had to find this out the hard way, think back to your first few semesters. What made you change your mind, your major and ultimately, the path that your life was headed along? Chances are the choice was neither arbitrary nor spontaneous.
Often, the seeds for our interests and our careers are planted during those years in high school when we weren’t fighting our way through AP Physics to appeal to the engineering program or practicing five hours a day to prepare for our college auditions. For me, it was just another class and just another teacher whose influence remarkably stayed with me until college. The decision to take European history was simply to fulfill a curriculum requirement, and being placed in Mr. Drake’s class was sheer luck. But my experiences in his class instilled in me an immutable love of history, and when I realized it was time to pick a new major, the choice was actually quite obvious.
I do not regret taking time to discover what I wanted to do, nor should anyone else. I would simply encourage everyone, freshman or senior, to allow yourself to explore. Often, the interests you discover early in life never really leave you.
— Sarah Russell is a junior in history. She can be reached at srusse22@utk.edu.
