When I was applying for college a little over a year ago, there was one box that I was always too anxious to fill. It wasn’t the GPA, SAT or ACT - it was “intended major.”

Of course, I had a perfectly rehearsed phrase that I would rattle off whenever someone asked me in person: “Oh, I’m not really sure yet, but I’ll probably apply for business or something broad. Ya know, just to keep my options open.” But when the box looked me dead in the eyes and threatened me with my impending future, I couldn’t bring myself to decide.

After much discussion and debate, I filled in the box with “Economics.” It was still in the College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences, and it was as close to business as I could get without completely committing myself. As I wrote it, I could feel every other subject I’d ever been passionate about sigh in defeat. Music, English, Drama, Gender Studies. But I grit my teeth and obliged.

That is until I received the pamphlet urging me to apply for Thematic Option -- USC’s honors GE track. I read through its description, and while it was daunting, I was immediately intrigued. I filled out the application, the words coming to me in tidal waves. I loved the prospect of studying literature in a way that is collaborative, cohesive, and interdisciplinary.

I’ve had a couple incoming students text me this past week and tell me that they’ve gotten accepted into Thematic Option, wondering if I had any advice on whether or not they should do it. How much work is it? Is it manageable? Is it fun? Honestly, I didn’t have to think twice. While TO is definitely a lot of work, it is exponentially worth it and I would recommend it to anyone (who, of course, doesn’t absolutely hate reading and writing).

It has been an outlet this past year that I certainly would be lost without.

I have also, within the past couple weeks, had this existential crisis about what I want to do in my life return. The more and more I learn about my major, the more cynical I get and honestly, the less I like it. Econ is just so based off of cynicism and numbers and money, and it’s dehumanizing to the point that we forget that we’re talking about people, their incomes, and really, their livelihood. In the US, every 1% that unemployment drops, about 37,000 citizens lose their lives. It’s so easy to just think of the subject as interpreting statistics until you realize that these statistics are people. Often, people don’t.

I have always been an avid writer, and I think one of the main reasons for this is that it helps me rationally deal with the injustice that’s innately within the world. When I was young and started to realize that the world was so much bigger and worse than what was inside my school gates, I began to write. I wrote countless short stories in my adolescent years, somehow spewed out three novels in middle school and early high school, and through these, quickly learned to channel this passion of injustice into my writing.

There was a project that we did in my AP Language and Composition class called the Modes Project — we had to write 7 different essays, all of different types, about the same topic word. Not only did I earn an A+ on this project, but I used the project as inspiration for my common app essay when applying to schools. I attribute a great deal of my admission to USC to this project: all because I chose something I was passionately upset about. My word was “Girl.”

I have been circling many of these topics in my head the past couple of weeks, trying to piece everything together and deal with this weird feeling that I’ve been having. I can’t quite describe it, but I think it’s a mixture of a sense of discomfort with impending change, and alternatively, a fear that the trajectory of my life won’t change.

I didn’t really think I had a problem with the former until I left for college and was absolutely terrified of the prospect of my life changing. And as for the latter, I think I’m really just concerned that I’ll be stuck in this major that I’m not passionate about, be filtered into a job that I’m not excited for, and then living a life that I’m not happy with.

Now, I realize that all of this sounds incredibly dramatic. I would concede that yes, I’m being dramatic. But I will also argue that everyone’s inner psyche is a little dramatic, at least at times.

It may seem like all of these paragraphs are totally unrelated, and to be honest, you’re probably right. Because see, that's the point of writing as a form of catharsis. You write what you feel, and what you feel doesn't make sense. It's not supposed to.

I think what I’m trying to get at is a testimony of how important it is to write, and appreciate others writing — not just because it makes us more intelligent or more worldly or because of the fact that it is quite literally necessary to every field of study/employment, but because it makes us more human. It connects emotion and logic, statistic and humanity.

And I think this is what I need to remember when I get into these modes of existential crisis: first of all, I don’t need to know exactly what I want to do in life yet. In fact, I don’t think I’ll ever need to know. I want to do so many different things with my time here, I simply need to decide what I’m doing next (or first, arguably).

Additionally, I need to remember that writing will always be necessary and present - not because of what I’m doing in life, but because that’s who I am. I write because that is how I rationalize how I feel because my writing is a direct line to my soul.

Because writing keeps me grounded, keeps me humanized. I know that there is a passion inside of me for what’s right, for fighting for humanity: it comes out in almost everything that I write, it comes out in interpretations of what I read, and it really never leaves my mind. I know that whatever I end up doing, that won’t change, and my ability to write about it will keep me excited and happy in my life.I just need to trust it.