Well readers, it’s happening. I’m growing up. Because guess what happened this week??
The four year plan was made. That’s right. My major? English with a Creative Writing Emphasis. My future? Decided.
Well at least for the next four years.
It’s crazy isn’t it? Last year, I was just a freshman, trying desperately to find a major – my fate, if you will, and I gave up. Just gave up, all because I couldn’t settle on something and thought the cause was lost. I had stressed and stewed about the decision for the majority of the year, and so I decided to take the summer off and deal with this monstrous decision at the beginning of this year, so I could thoroughly enjoy my summer. As the months passed by, I let the thought process sit, and eventually forgot about it altogether.
When the school year came, I was more than ready to tackle this decision and figure out how my years would be spent. My mind-set going into the year was: I’m going to use all my resources to figure out what I’m good at and what I like to learn about. And let me tell you, Hope has more resources to help a person out in this department than I knew what to do with! I had countless meetings with my Academic Adviser (needless to say, her and I are good friends now), and Amy over at Career Development? We also became very, VERY good friends.
A few other things that helped me think through this decision, besides my Advisor and the wonderful people at Career Development, were talking to people from the departments I was interested in. I was lucky because my Advisor was in the English Department, so I could talk to her about any questions that I had, but I also talked to numerous people in other programs I was thinking about, such as the Art Department and the Management Department. Just talking with professors in different departments and asking them any questions you might have really helps to sort your thoughts and see if that department is somewhere you’d be happy learning. The second thing that helped me and really got me off to a good start of learning where I wanted to go was the Strengths Quest (provided through Career Development). The strengths quest is an online test you take to see what kinds of attributes you have. For example, my Strengths quest showed that I had strong relationship-building skills. Even though my strengths didn’t determine my major, they definitely gave me good direction with which to start my journey of finding my major.
Even though my major is decided, I still don’t know what I want to do career-wise, and my advice to ANYONE (not just freshmen) is that that’s okay, you don’t have to know! I used to think that everyone in college knew what they were doing after they graduated, but it turns out in talking to almost everyone, that the job or field of work they are in now is completely different than what their major was. I love that. It really does make the possibilities of what a person can do with their life endless.
So for those of you stressing out about what your major will be or what job you’ll get once you’ve graduated, stop all your worrying! There are people and resources here at Hope that will help you through whatever decisions you need to make. They are more than willing to do so. And you’ll find your place in the world, just like everyone else has. Don’t worry. You’ve got time.
If you have any questions about how you can explore your major and career options, visit http://www.hope.edu/student/career/about.html You won’t be disappointed!
Until next time!