I don’t know what to do. I’m so stressed out, I can’t make up my mind at what I want to do with my life. Everyone I know is passionately majoring in a subject that has good pay and has their happiness. But with me, it’s like I’ll have a big interest in a subject then all of a sudden not have any interest in it. It’s happened several times and I’m sick of it. I’m a freshman, and at first I was going for Computer Science then I dropped it because I didn’t like it anymore (thought it was boring). After that, I was going to declare a Biology major because I discovered I loved looking at cells and everything. I would go online and look up information about cells, and I was relieved to have finally found something I could major in. Then all of a sudden, I just lost interest in Biology in general and I really don’t know why. I’m tired of losing interest in material I like, and it’s like all of a sudden I want nothing to do with it. Now I feel like I might want to go into Nursing, but I just know it’s all going to be a phase. I really have no interest in a lot of degrees and it saddens me because, I mean, I have NO interest. I can’t help it I don’t know what it is. I feel like I should just leave College because for me it just isn’t working, I feel like I’m waisting time and money because my stupid head can’t just get it together. Can anyone help? I really don’t know what to do with my life.
@moony202 you are not alone. Plenty of 18 year olds head off to college without a clue what to major in. Are you at a school where you can have an undeclared major for a year or two and explore options? You can make sure to take biology or nursing prerequisites while playing around with other options, that way you can keep those options open too. Education isn’t always just career training but a chance to try different things that lead you to a knowledge base that will be useful for any career. It is normal for interests to shift around. Life is not a straight path for most of us, you included.
Don’t compare your insides to other people’s outsides. Sure, everyone else may look really happy, like they are majoring passionately in a field they love or whatnot. But that doesn’t mean that they’re not internally wrestling with uncertainty. It also doesn’t mean that the classmate who seems so passionate about computer science this year isn’t going to be an English major by next October.
You’re not supposed to decide what you want to do with your life at 18. I’m 29 and I don’t know what I want to do with my life. I know what I like right now, and what will have me well-positioned for things I like down the line. That’s really all you can do. Think about your choice of major not as an unalterable life course but really just you settling in to study something interesting for 4 years.
I’m suspecting that you are falling prey to the ‘passion cycle.’ You sound like the kind of person who has strong feelings very quickly, and you love new things. (Me too!) It may be that when you settle on a major, you are initially excited because it’s shiny and new and are in that “honeymoon phase.” But once you get into the every day, and it’s not so new anymore, your interest drops off a bit and you become less passionate. That’s normal, but that doesn’t mean you’ve lost interest - you kind of have to stick around a little to see what shakes out.
And if all else fails, just pick something reasonably enjoyable and stick with it.
Does your interest wane when things get difficult for you? That seems like what you are describing but I can’t tell for sure without asking explicitly. That does happen for some people. Things are really interesting and attract them but then as soon as they get to the nitty gritty of it, they lose interest. If true, then you need to work on that in a different way than if you were simply undecided about what you want in general.