What Switching Majors In College Taught Me About Life

When I first started my college years at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in Fall 2018, I had already declared my major as political science.

I thought I would pursue a career in public life, working somewhere in government and potentially holding public office someday. I love learning about government and American history, so I thought political science was my best choice.

Boy was I wrong.

The more political science classes I took at Illinois, the more I grew to dislike the major. I didn’t care for the material. Lectures and the readings were boring. Classmates argued with other classmates or the professor much of the time.

Four classes in, I needed a change. But to what?

At the time I considered switching majors, I served as a senior columnist for The Daily Illini, the school’s independent newspaper. I became friends with many people on the staff, most of whose were journalism majors. As I told my story about political science, all of them replied with the same thought: “You need to be doing journalism.”

After a long process, I was finally accepted into journalism. Here’s what I learned from the experience:

You Have to Follow Your Passion.