When life was just electives, the next lunch date at the cafe and late night laughing fits with your roommates, there wasn't much to worry about. College is an amazing time to let the crazy side out and try things you've never done before. But, there's a lot of things about college that doesn't get talked about enough. Things like classes get harder, friends become more busy and slowly fading away and when you begin to see people crying on the second floor of the library more frequently and understanding completely. Those days you thought were way in the future are getting closer and before you know it, you're the old one on campus. Life is starting to become more real and the future is shining in your face like an oncoming train.

Senior year is on the horizon, internships are coming to an end and the reality of leaving the place you experienced second puberty in is starting to fade. I dont know about anyone else, but I am struggling between making my Senior year my most fun year yet and losing hair at the thought of what the hell am I going to do with the rest of my life.

Age 18-19:

During high school, I spent most of my days dreaming of faraway lands that only exisited in my head, finishing a novel I had been working on and binge reading articles in National Geographic. I lusted after traveling, experiencing new cultures, learning languages and spreading my wings to experience something many people thought was impossible. I wrote about my dreams, I wrote everything about my future self and who I was going to become. I decided at a very young age that I was going to dedicate my life to writing and become one of the best writers the world had ever seen.

After graduation, I cashed in on my wanderlust and said adios to the United States to move to Liege, Belgium as an exchange student. Deep down I knew I still had reservations about the scary world of writing and I thought maybe a year of clearing my head and seeing the world would asure me that writing was for me. Well, lets just say there was more partying than soul searching, but I was 18 and had barely any adult supervision, so what else can you expect? But after an insane year of spontaneuous day trips of border hopping and meeting some of the most amazing people I will ever meet in my life, that year left me with a false sense of accomplishment that I had somehow found myself. When really, I was more lost than ever. I left Belgium believing my true calling was a Marine Biologist and did everything that summer to convince my parents, and most importantly myself, that this was what I wanted to do with my life.

Freshman year of college, I was dead set on spending the rest of my life at sea and when General Bio 1 left me in tears, I was right back at the beginning. After a long talk with my advisor and crying on the phone with my mom at what a mess I made with my life, I thought I should try my orignal Plan A. Writing was the only thing I knew I was good at and wrote every day growing up. I was filled with adventure and horrible grammar, but my mind never stopped buzzing at putting words on a page. Unfortunately, I let the pressure of society infect my self esteem and continued doubting my passion.

I changed my major five times Freshman year. Constanlty switching between Journalism and Biology, back to Journalism and then to Bio Medical Science (don't even get me started on why that got thrown in there, I still have no idea) and then back to Journalism.

For a while and still to this day I know I landed on the right choice. I got everything, I thrived in classes, I published articles online, got beat down by my teachers and rewrote almost everything my junior year of college because I could do better. My teachers saw the potential I had in this career and for a while I was the happiest I had ever been.

Age 20-21:

I was happy with journalism. I was finally doing something I was good at. Classes were building to be more challenging and when I realized the teachers at my school were grooming us to be Broadcast Journalists, which about 98% of us did not want to be, the doubt creepped back in. That is all the curriculum at our school allows. They were breeding us to stay in our home town and be the next generation of local news anchors. Our system was cheating us out of the immense array of different kinds of journalism the world has offered and it was really weighing on my mind.

In Multimedia Storytelling one day, we had the pleasure of having a newsanchor from our local TV station come out and talk to our class. She was tall, gorgeous and her voice was so angelic it was like listening to a lullaby. But she scared me and she scared everyone else. Starting out, she made only $19,000 a year for her first three years of her career, she was a one woman show with her network and had no help from producers or cameramen. She wasnt allowed to request off from work if she wanted to go to a funeral of a close friend, only parents and siblings funerals were allowed to be attended. She worked every major holiday and on air 37 straight hours during the last major hurricane.

I was on edge after that day. But the last straw came when I was working with a cold case agency for class and was assigned a homicide. I was to call this person's family and learn about his life, his hobbies and ultimately the ambush that killed him in his grandmother's front yard. I wasn't prepared for the amount of guilt I was about to feel with this case and I began to detest journalism for making me feel this way. Hearing the heartbreak and the shock of what happened to these people and their family sent me spiraling down. His brother recounted the night he found out his brother was shot to death, I heard his mother crying to me over the phone and excusing herself for a moment to gather her emotions as I needed a moment, too. This case had drained me of every emotional ounce I had left, and I gave up.

Age 22:

Being a Broadcast Journalist was all I thought I could amount to in this line of work. It's all I was exposed to. If I was to spend my entire career writing about murders, I wanted no part of it. I started researching different things you could do as with a Journalism degree, as I was too far in change my major now. As I was googling, the words "Social Media" kept popping up. I had already ran a few social media accounts for my school and my dad's business, so I ultimately thought I was a pro. Somehow and some way I found a Social Media Internship for that coming summer and I convinced my Internship Cordinator at my school that this was the path for me.

As summer comes around and the months of my internship go by, I found myself unhappy again. I found myself staring at the keyboard wishing all I could do was open up Word and start writing. I found myself researching more jobs for Journalism majors and looking around trying to find something that inspired me. Yes, playing on Instagram was easy and fun, but I knew that writing was what I was put on this Earth to do.

I kept researching and I kept seeing jobs pop up that I was interested in. Amazing opportunities existed outside of my narrow major's curriculm. I felt the weight that was strapped on my back for months lift up and dissapear. I felt revived and I started writing again. I wrote everything under the sun now that I knew there were opportunities for me. As I was scolling LinkedIn one morning, I noticed that quite a number of jobs kept listing the requirement of 1-3+ years experience for entry level jobs and previous writing internships as well as portfolios.

I remember the beating of my heart and the instant wave of nerves arise from my feet.

Did I really just waste a summer internship on Social Media when I could of been writing for a newspaper? Could I have done something smarter and set me ahead in my career? All these thoughts and tears started spewing out of me. I felt like a complete idiot for giving up writing. I realized, after dedicating myself and working so hard on giving a good piece for that family to read about their murdered son, I gave up because it got hard? I kicked myself for months because I felt like the stupidest person alive.

After that moment of clarity, I realized all I was doing was making excuses. That murder story made me be a better writer. I slaved over that story. I put in hours sitting in my editors office, going over each fact, word for word. I simply gave up everything I had worked for because I didnt want to write about a murder case. If I could go back in time and slap myself, I would.

So what do I do now?

Do I take on another Internship after this one? Do I apply for writing jobs this coming year without any professional writing experience on my resume? I must look like a joke to them, a Journalism major that didnt intern with a newspaper or a news station? It's all perposterous. The most heart wrenching thing of all? That I'm going to go into my senior year just as confused as I was during my brief and failed attempt at Marine Biology.

I'm still completely unsure how I'm going to make a career in writing work and I've been seriously considering selling everything I own and just backpacking my way across the world. I mean, I don't have kids or a significant other, it seems like a valid option to clear my head. But it still doesnt answer questions that have been echoing in my head for months now. How I'm going to get experience in writing? How I'm going to make any of this work? Maybe some day I'll find the answer, but for now, I'm terrified.