For as long as I can remember adults were asking me what I wanted to be when I grow up. It probably started in preschool, when they make you draw a picture of yourself doing whatever job your five year old self (who doesn’t know the slightest thing about life) plans on having. Through my 19 years of living my answers have ranged from famous singer to marine biologist. Flash forward 15 years and I am now going into my sophomore year of college. I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up, except the problem now is that I am grown up. My college clock is ticking and everyone around me is much more concerned about me deciding on a major than I am; because there is no reason to be concerned.

You wouldn’t believe the look of horror on adults faces when they ask me what I’m going to college for and I reply “I’m still undecided.” How could I possibly not know what I want to do with the rest of my life? I mean I have had 19 years to decide. Know-it-all adult then proceeds to ask the golden question, “Well, what are you interested in?” As if I had never, in my entire life, thought to consider what I am interested in. This is where my problem lies. I do know what I am interested in and I do know what I want to do with my life. What I mean by this is, I know what I would want to do with my life if this was an ideal world, which it is not.

Let me elaborate.

Have you ever heard the quote from Confucius that says “choose a job you love and you will never work a day in your life”? Well that is true, to a degree. Choose a major you love and you will never work a day in your life, because that field probably isn’t hiring. Now that is more accurate. Unless you love math and science, unless you want to be an engineer or a nurse, there is a good chance you aren’t going to get a job doing exactly what you want with your bachelor’s degree. Of course there are exceptions, but generally speaking this is true.

I love psychology and I excel in writing. So why am I still undecided if I know what I enjoy doing? Because I don’t want to waste four years and $100,000 to end up working as a secretary making a couple bucks over minimum wage, and that is exactly what will happen. Now I know you can’t be in it just for the money, and I fully support perusing a career doing what you love. But here’s the thing, I can go get my liberal arts degree, but now not only am I not making enough money to support myself and pay off my student loans, I am still not doing what I love.

What they don’t tell you about your liberal arts degree is that it is just there to look good on your resume that you have a college degree in something, so that you can get hired to do a job that isn’t related to your major what so ever.

It is seemingly impossible to find a common ground between doing what you enjoy and doing something that will be worth all the student loan debt you are in. This is what I would love to explain to every ignorant adult who thinks the answer to my problem simply lies within what my interests are.

I went to college undecided; I have changed my major at least ten times since then. I am still undecided.

Here is the thing, even if you think you know what you want to do with your life, there is a good chance you don’t. According to the National Center for Education Statistics about 80 percent of students in the U.S. change their major at least once; on average college students change their major at least three times over the course of their college career. Your fellow classmates that think they know what they are doing for the rest of their life will realize when they are already 40 credits deep in their major that there is no future for them in the field of English literature. Now they have to spend more time and money on school. The bonus to going in undecided is you probably didn’t waste a ton of credits devoted to one single major that you are later going to regret.

Take some classes and see what you are into, or even find out what you are not into. Talk to people, your professors, your employers, your friend’s parents, everyone knows something you don’t and you never know who might spark the right idea in your head. Take a year off if you have to, experience the world and what it has to offer, you are not obligated to go to college right after high school, or at all for the matter, just because it is the ‘norm’. Don’t make a $100,000 mistake because you are not sure what you want to do with your life and everyone else is telling you that college is what you want to do with your life. It is okay to not know what you want to do, don’t listen to any one who tells you otherwise.