How one student found her self through picking a major

By SADIE ROBERTS

Whether you came to college knowing exactly what you want to do, or not, chances are things will change. I came to the University of Mary Washington knowing that I wanted to be a psychology major.  Many people told me I would never find a job, and that if I did, it would never make enough money, but even through that, I was dead set on being a psychology major.

In my first semester at UMW I signed up for General Psychology. Needless to say, I was most excited about that class. As the semester went on, my excitement began to dwindle. It wasn’t because of the teacher, it wasn’t because of the work load, but because of what we were learning. I quickly noticed that everything we were leaning in General Psych was everything I learned in my senior year AP Psychology class. There was nothing new for me to learn. So, I made it my mission to get into an interesting psychology class the next semester.

Little did I know that being a freshman, the pickings for classes would be very slim. I ended up in a 400 level psychology class that I, as a freshman, had no business being in. Again, the class was boring to me, the subject, The Fundamentals of Learning and Motivation, was just not my cup of tea.

I began to think to myself, “Do I really want to major in psychology?” I could not believe that I was actually considering changing my path. I mean, I decided I was going to be a psychology major when I was in sixth grade. This made me panic. If not psychology, what? I had never been enthusiastic and passionate about anything else. I had some thinking to do.

Weeks later, and with some encouragement from my mother, I started to consider business. Business could be a good choice. I can get a generic business degree and figure out what to do with it much later. It was a perfect plan until I met with a new professor of mine who asked me what my major was. I explained to him what happened my freshman year and why I was considering changing.

He paused before saying, “Do what you are passionate about, what you get excited about. Put aside the extra edge you might get from being a business major, put aside what other people say.”

I realized that he had a point. I was considering being a business major for all the wrong reasons, and I finally understood that I was truly enthusiastic about psychology. Roughly a month after that conversation, I turned in my major declaration paperwork, and now I am officially a psychology major.

What I learned from all of this is that I shouldn’t let what people say change your mind, don’t let money change your mind and don’t let the difficulty of finding a job in that field change your mind. If you pick a major that you don’t like, I guarantee you will not fully enjoy your college experience.