Deciding on My Major

          When students leave high school, and go off to college, everyone asks them the same questions: where are you going to school? And what are you majoring in? Throughout my life, I’ve changed my mind on what I wanted to be when I grew up so many times, that even as a junior in high school, I wasn’t 100% sure what I wanted to do. When I was younger, I considered being a fashion designer, then I switched to wanting to be a dance teacher, at some point, I wanted to be a graphic designer, a photographer, and then in my senior year of high school, I decided I wanted to be a first grade teacher. However, when I was applying to schools at the beginning of my senior year, I put “Undecided” on my application. I was slightly embarrassed about this, and I didn’t like the idea of not knowing exactly what I wanted to do when all of my peers seemed to have a grasp on this. I felt a little lost, and I still wasn’t even completely sure on my decision to become a first grade teacher. While I loved that age group, and I knew that I would have a lot of fun being in such an environment, I still wasn’t sure exactly how to go about deciding on what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. What did I want to devote 40+ years to?

            I entered Miami as a freshman in the fall of last year. Before coming to school, or even scheduling my classes, I officially declared my major as Early Childhood Education. I was happy with this decision, but more importantly, I was excited. As I started my classes first semester, I really enjoyed them. My professors were great, and I was interested in the topics of the classes required for my major. One of my classes required service learning, and I was placed in a third grade classroom in the Talawanda School District. The students were excellent, but I realized that I was simply just not a third grade teacher. I recognized that if I stuck with Early Childhood, I would only want to teach first grade, even though I would be certified for kindergarten through third grade, and I didn’t want to limit myself that much. I wanted to be a teacher; my general teacher education classes taught me that. I just didn’t know what I wanted to teach. In the back of my mind, I knew that I always had loved English, and it was always the class I looked forward to. So, in October of last year, I made the decision to switch my major, and I officially became an Integrated English and Language Arts Education major. I was ecstatic with this decision and I couldn’t wait to start taking classes that were directed towards my major.
            English is something I’ve always loved, and writing papers is something I actually do enjoy (well, for the most part). I wasn’t always excited about books and reading, but I’ve grown to love books and to love reading. In second semester of my freshman year, I added a minor in Writing and Rhetoric so I could study English even more in depth. I’m so much happier now that I’ve finally decided on what I want to do with my life, and it’s nice to know that I’ll be doing something that makes me happy.