It's heartbreaking to see students go to a school that wasn't in their plan and pursue a major that their heart just isn't into, especially those of us who like to be creative and don't particularly want to get a degree in business or education. Sure, you can explore your creativity in those fields because you'll always have to be changing with the times and have to get very creative to figure out what works and what doesn't, but it's not really what a truly creative person wants to do. I know the struggle of picking a major, so hello! We are now best friends.

I'm the type of person who likes to go with the flow, but I also like to have an idea of how I want things to be and how I want them to turn out; that's why it was so hard for me to pick a major because I was constantly changing my mind about what I wanted to be, where I wanted to work, who I wanted to work for, and so many other things. It was a tough time for me during my senior year of high school because it seemed like everyone had their plan and life all figured out and then there was me; undecided and confused.

Before I got to college, I was basically pressured by family members to pick a major and every time I said something that was interesting to me, they brushed the idea up under the rug and told me many things like, "What are you going to do with that?" "You can't do anything with that," and my all-time favorite, "You need to do something that's going to get you money." That last one really irked my nerves because to me, a career is something someone does where they are happy and not just in it for the money; money eventually runs out, happiness is an eternal thing. I was already confused about what I wanted to study, so to hear my own relatives essentially shoot my dreams down killed me, so I picked a major and they were so happy when I told them the one that I picked. It wasn't my pick; it was theirs.

I talked to my mom for months about what I should do and when I told her that I was going to meet with an advisor to talk about what I should do because she knew that I wasn't going to be happy with settling for a major. My mom was basically the only family I had to tell me that it's okay to not pick a major right away, but she understood that I wanted to have my life figured out; I'm eighteen and I will never have my life figured out, no matter how many times I think I will.

I went to meet with the advisor and she looked at my assessment score and saw that I excelled in arts over every other field that I was tested on, so she told me the words that I so desperately needed to hear, "You knew what you wanted to do. You just needed a little bit more of a push to get you to say it," and that day, I changed my major for the last time.

I went through at least five different majors, ranging from social work to criminal justice, but I finally picked multimedia journalism because it's what stuck out to me most; I love writing, I love being apart of a creative force (shout out Troy University Odyssey), and and I love having that creative freedom.

Moral of this long-winded story, college is for you, not your family. Pursue that degree to be a sociologist, no matter if your dad says that you need to become a coach. Pursue that dance degree to have the chance to dance in different productions, no matter if your grandma says you need to be a teacher like your mom. If they wanted to have you pursue a specific degree, then they should be the ones waking up at 7 every morning to make that 8 AM all the way across campus. It's your life at the end of the day, so you may as well do something to make it worth living.