College is the best thing that has ever happened to me. I absolutely love everything about it. I love my professors, I love the freedom, I love to learn. However, I do not love the workload. I do not love staying up all night studying  and feeling like a zombie on campus the next day. Even though I had to deal with these struggles, I can say that it is a great adventure. It’s up to you to figure out what kind of adventure College will take you on. In my case, my adventure brought many low-lows and many high-highs. It’s been a struggle but I am enjoying every moment of it.  The challenges I go though make me stronger. I truly believe that I developed that confidence I needed to become a proud and successful person when I enrolled in college.

My first semester in college was horrible. I wanted to become a Pharmacist because I thought they had an “easy” job. According to my big brother, who has a lot of Pharmacy friends, “all Pharmacists do is count pills and get paid a lot of money”. He made it sound like it was the best job in the whole world. I believed him I declared biology as my major and saw myself sailing smoothly through my college years.

After the first week into the semester, I regretted listening to my brother. There was no smooth sailing. Biology was not working for me. I did not understand anything. Never in my life had I read so much, studied so hard, slept so little and got such lousy grades. I was so disappointed when I got my final grades that semester. I had no idea how hard college was. I was such a good student in high school, what was happening? It was my goal to climb out of that hole because I knew that I did not belong there. I was too smart and worked too hard.  

I decided that I needed to work differently. I needed to stop overwhelming myself with the work load and the pressure. I had to suck it up and just do it. And I did. I learned how to study better and how to make better use of my time.   I wrote my schedule down everyday so that I could see what I needed to study for and how to work it into my daily activities.  I also dropped Biology as a major and explored other fields. After a year of exploring, I found what I was supposed to study, Economics. These courses made me think differently. I have never been so excited to learn more.  I fell in love with the science of economics. It felt right to declare Economics as a major.

 I learned that school is so much better if you enjoy it, which I do very much. I see progress and growth when my GPA constantly increases every semester. I made such a huge improvement since my pharmacy days. I climbed out of the hole and earned straight A’s. I even made the Dean’s list!!  

I hope that people do not determine their majors based only on other people’s suggestions. I would like to see people declare their majors and go to school because they want to. Being forced to do something is not going to bring out the best in you and your potential. Personally, I had to learn how to focus on myself and on what made me happy. Listening to my bother about studying Pharmacy was a mistake, but it was the best mistake I ever made. I learned how it felt to be at the bottom. This makes being at the top so enjoyable.

Hopefully, my motivation and confidence will continue to strengthen as I get older, and it will help me get through graduate school and hopefully (crossing my fingers) help me earn a doctorate degree. I want people to know that college is so much more than a social scene, homework, and difficult old professors; it's a life changing experience. It was for me at least. College made me the confident and happy person that I am. I love it.