Undecided

In high school I honestly never thought I was going to find something in college that I enjoyed. I was never really good at any subject in school. But I did like math. Being one of the very few people in the entire world to actually really enjoy calculus, I kind of decided I should be an accountant. Yes, that was my logic. Then the fear of hating my job, and my life, after graduating was always in the back of my head. That quickly became a big fat no for me. I swapped between lawyer, algebra teacher, marine biologist and chemistry every single day. I was just confused.
How could I take what I'm actually good at and do it?
I applied to two schools--both as an undeclared major. I was undeclared up until the day I attended "admitted students day" with my mom at the school I currently attend. We were sitting in the chairs under the "liberal arts majors" sign. All of the other schools (business, sciences, etc) were all grouped together, and then there was me--a reject. As they called each of the groups to go tour their department, I was desperately searching for something that sounded interesting to me. I didn't want to graduate college with a degree in liberal arts. That didn't sound appealing to me.
Finally, the announcer called for the communications department. I never knew what communications was, exactly. That's why I never ever considered it. My mom was the one to speak up and suggest we follow that tour. Since I don't exactly excel in the math or sciences, a more creative, technological route is the one I should be taking.
They brought us to the Fine Arts building for a tour of where we would be taking a majority of our classes for the next four years. The final stop on the tour was the TV studio. I don't know why but I fell in love. It's not a huge studio--the group (of maybe 10 people) I took the tour with barely fit into the control room. I think I loved how much everyone around me loved it. Or maybe it was because every college I had toured, I didn't bother looking at their communications department since I still hadn't a clue what I was doing. But I did think this one was special.
Just as a little back story, I almost didn't even tour this school in the first place. Carrie Underwood forced me to. Yup. Carrie Underwood. My church youth group was taking a college road trip to a bunch of really cool Christian colleges on the east coast and I wanted to go so bad. If I did, however, I would miss a Carrie Underwood concert that I was attending while they were gone. I don't know why I chose to go to the concert instead, honestly. But I did. And since I wasn't going to be looking at colleges with them, my dad thought it was only fair that I tour Rider University. I knew it was a mad expensive, private college and that was about it. I don't think he ever intended on me actually liking it (I rejected about 80% of the colleges I looked at, as soon as I toured them)--it was just to get a feel for the tiny, private school atmosphere. Well, I walked off that campus highly considering applying. And so, I did. Why not, right?
Anyway, picking from two schools was really, really hard for me. One is commuting distance from my house and the other is about an hour away. I wanted to live on campus, that was for sure. I just wasn't sure how close I wanted to be. Plus, I had already fallen in love with one of them.
Something in the back of my head always told me Rider was the right choice but it felt like everyone and everything around me was pointing in the opposite direction. Of course, I went with my gut--this was a huge risk for me. I felt like I was letting everyone down for not choosing what seemed more logical at the moment--less expensive, closer to home, larger student body, you name it.
Even today, Rider just feels right for me. I'm not sure where I got the feeling from in the first place but when I knew, I knew. And I wasn't going to let anyone change my mind.
Over the summer I sent in the email to the admissions department to change my major. I'm a "Communication Studies" major (with a minor in Spanish). This means I chose a major, but I didn't choose a major. There are so many things about this department that I love that I haven't chose a specific one yet (journalism, public relations, radio/ tv, graphic design, etc). That's a lot further ahead than I was this time last year, for sure.
I love my school. It's been a tough adjustment and I didn't exactly get the grades I was hoping for in my first semester, but I think I'm finally getting the hang of it.
I couldn't imagine myself anywhere else.


Here's a picture of me and my rad roomie, Delaney!!!!