It’s Okay If You Still Don’t Know What To Study In College

It has come to the point in my life where I have to make what could probably be one of the most important choices of my life: figuring out which colleges to apply for.

It has always been something I shoved to the back of my mind because I always told myself it was years away. Sometimes I would even think that it couldn’t touch me because it never seemed like it was coming towards me. That is, until it did.

Then, suddenly, all of these deadlines and applications were shoved towards me all at once. Suddenly, I was supposed to know exactly where I wanted to go for college and what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

I was expected to go from living in complete dependence of my parents for my decisions to rapidly being shoved onto the pedestal of responsibility to completely take charge of my future, as if it was always mine to command. It never did seem that way, though.

I see all of my classmates proudly declare what they want to do with their lives. Some wanted to be medical technicians and doctors; others wanted to be engineers and architects. Some leaned toward business courses, others to legal management. And being surrounded by all of these faces that hold such certainty of what their future would look like and knowledge of how they would fit into it just overwhelms me, as if I need to know what I want to be, too.

And my brain is also working against me, filling my head with paranoia and inhibitions no matter what situation I try to convince myself could be for me. From constant questioning about whether I am good enough to survive this course to wondering if I fit into somewhere else. Could I find happiness there? Sometimes I just pretend to be carefree and reckless just to turn these worries off and shove them to the darkest possible crevice in my mind before they emerge once more in the silence.

It’s quite daunting actually, the feeling that you should suddenly be so certain to something so abstract, hazy and far away yet so near all at the same time. Your future will always hold an uncertainty to it, but maybe that’s a good thing. Perhaps the constant change and possibility of it keeps things interesting, and a part of me just keeps reminding myself that these worrisome thoughts that constantly plague me may just be a part of the suspense of what comes next.

All I can hope to do is to know myself well enough soon enough to make a decision that I won’t completely regret and hate myself for in the future. All I can dream of is a happy life once I get through this labyrinth of choices and responsibilities.