There is something especially scary about the rest of your life being dictated by a decision you made as a teenager. Once you reach your junior or senior year of high school, it is generally expected that you have everything figured out. Are you going to college? If so, what will you major in? Will you go to community college or a state school? If not, what are you doing instead? Will you go straight to work or pursue trade school? How do you plan on paying for any of it?
By the time I reached my senior year of high school, I was terrified. My ideal artistic career path, a storyboard artist, seemed out of reach and too risky for me. My anxiety barely let me consider it seriously. On the other hand, more lucrative options were entirely uninteresting to me.
Not going to college at all was an option, of course, but without job experience or any impressive skills I wouldn’t get very far. I had dual enrollment credits and ACT scores that would get me decent financial aid. So, to college I came. In my first year I changed my major four times. In order: theatre, speech pathology, theatre and moving image arts.
Analysis paralysis, the process where overanalyzing a decision can lead one to a complete standstill, had me in its grip from junior year of high school to the end of my freshman year in college. I constantly went back and forth, settling on one path and then changing my mind the next day, hour or even minute: theatre, speech pathology, theatre and moving image arts.
In my last year of high school, I confided in my art teacher about my fears. She told me she changed her major seven times and that I am young and had time to figure it out. People constantly told me that I had time. And it was true, until it wasn’t.
I started as a theatre major concentrating in design/tech, and I really did enjoy it. The people were amazing and the craft is one I truly enjoy. But I was not built for spending every night of the week in hours-long rehearsals. So, I panicked and changed my major to speech pathology.
This was a decision made in my attempt to force myself into a “real” job path. I enjoy both linguistics and helping people so, at the time, it felt right. I got advised and scheduled my first few classes in the major. For a fleeting moment, I was hopeful. I was going to be a speech pathologist. I was going to help people talk. And then I panicked and changed my major back to theatre.
Bounded rationality is the idea that when someone must make a decision, their rationality becomes limited. Instead of choosing the most optimal solution, the decision maker will choose the most satisfactory solution.
My satisfactory solution was moving image arts. Film is a good degree for a storyboard artist to have, and it is something that interests me. I can learn the building blocks for the trade I want, while practicing the hands-on skills via honors contracts, independent studies and my time outside of class.
After everything, all the mind changing, pros and cons lists and spiraling until midnight on the DegreeWorks “What If” tab, am I finally happy with the degree I am pursuing? Well, kind of. Some days I am content with my decision, other days I feel pangs of regret so strong it makes me sick.
But I think I chose a smart option for myself that will open up opportunities for me to be a part of the creative world I so strongly admire. If it doesn’t work out for me, that’s fine. I know enough adults in my life who are doing completely different things now than they planned to do at age 20. I am still so young and my future holds possibilities I can’t possibly imagine right now.
It is important to remember that while college is usually considered the beginning of your adult life, the decisions you make here are not the end-all-be-all. In such a difficult time for both the job market and the world, it can be hard to find something that will make you happy and pay the bills. There’s no easy solution to not knowing where you are going; it’s just important to not completely scare yourself away from making any progress towards getting there at all.