Finding your best major

ABBY GENTRY | THE USD VISTA | EDITOR

I am hardly entitled to tell anyone how to choose their major. I just declared mine and it took me entirely too long. I genuinely feel like I considered every single major that USD offers at one point or another. When I came to college, I thought I knew exactly what I wanted to do. Then, somehow I found myself knee deep into my sophomore year with no clue where I was heading. Funny how that works. The English major I once deemed “perfect for me” no longer seemed that way and I felt uninspired and drained.

I realized that the method I was using to chose my major was deeply flawed. I was trying to decide what I wanted to do when I grow up and work backwards from there. The problem was, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I still don’t. In an ideal world, I would be Justin Timberlake’s personal assistant and travel all over the world with him. Too bad there’s not a major for that.

I considered everything. When I thought of something I could see myself doing post graduation, I tried to think of the major that matched. Again, I found myself in classes that did not interest or inspire me. Finally, one day in the middle of my fall semester, I gave up. I didn’t know what I wanted to do but I did know that I needed to declare a major. I picked up the USD course catalog and began reading. I grabbed a highlighter and highlighted every class that sounded interesting. Once I read through the entire catalog (I skipped the math section because I had to be somewhat honest with myself), I went back and tried to find some kind of pattern. I quickly realized that almost every class I highlighted was in the communication studies department. This was a major that I had genuinely never considered for myself, but was now extremely excited about what my college experience could potentially look like. The next day, I went into the communication studies office, and declared myself a communication studies major.

My point is, while it is important to be thinking about what you want to do, don’t let that weigh you down. If you are engaged in your classes and enjoying what you are learning, things will work out. Taking classes because you feel they are the only way to get to a certain job field will drain you and potentially make you resent that field. Take classes that excite you and make your college experience enjoyable and everything will fall into place.