The Daily O’Collegian

Today I am a journalism and political science major. Tomorrow I could be an English major. The day after, I might decide art is the thing for me.

Changing your major is sort of an unspoken college tradition. Although I’ve exaggerated it a bit, there are people who have changed their majors multiple times.

What these people don’t realize, though, is that it is a blessing to be able to do that.

An Egyptian friend told me that in Egypt, changing your major is not an option. You have to know where you’re headed early on, usually by the second year of high school. At 16 or 17, you need to know whether you are more interested in math and science or if you lean toward history and the humanities.

Nevermind that at that age, you can barely see two weeks ahead.

Nevermind that at that age, you aren’t aware of all the possibilities the world has to offer.

And then, to top it off, you are not the deciding factor in what you major in. Your test scores determine whether you are capable of becoming an engineer, a teacher or a computer scientist. What you devote the rest of your life to depends on how high of a score you get.

Often, we get frustrated when we change majors. We feel unstable whether we are making the right decision. Why can’t someone hand us our life on a platter and say, “This is what you’ll be doing”?

That would make life quite a bit simpler.

Unfortunately, it’s not necessarily the life we want. It’s what someone else has decided we can do.

College is supposed to be about opening doors and making discoveries. You realize there is so much more to life than you have previously been told.

It would be horrible if, after finding all these new possibilities, you are told they are not for you, that you made a decision and you have to stick with it.

Growing up we are told we have so many options and that it’s never too late.

Counselors in high school tell us we still have time to decide. Advisers in college soothe our fears and tell us there’s no need to hasten a decision. And they reassure us that even if we do, we can still change that decision later on.

It’s hard to imagine that in some places, you aren’t able to do that.

Having your parents warn you that you must make up your mind quickly, and that you had better be sure that’s what you want to do because there’s no turning back, is quite stressful. It’s enough to cloud your thinking. How are you supposed to make a decision knowing so much is at stake?

We should be thankful for the opportunity to learn from our mistakes and the chances we have to fix them.

In some places, you have to live with those wrong decisions for your whole life — decisions that you weren’t even aware were wrong, — until it was too late.