Unplanned Plans: My College Transfer Story
From the time I was in my upperclassman years in high school and throughout college, I was very often asked this dreaded question: What are you going to major in at college? It was a question that brought about anxiety and self-doubt. I had no idea.
After high school graduation I followed the path that I knew. I attended the liberal arts college that my dad graduated from located three hours away in my mom’s hometown and where some of my extended family still lived. I took general education classes under an undecided major and played on the softball team. In a lot of ways, it felt like high school 2.0.
Halfway through the school year I started feeling unsatisfied with my college experience. It wasn’t what I expected and I felt like it lacked academic depth in areas of study that interested me. So, I decided to finish out the school year and transfer to a different college one state over and six hours away from home.
The transfer process made me feel worried, scared, but also excited. Fortunately, I reveled in the academic experience I had at this school right from the start. There was the depth of learning that I craved. I felt like I was challenged in new ways and felt very much at peace with my decision to transfer, however still unsure of my major.
Over the next year I made the decision to attend school part-time and get a general Associate of Arts degree while working in entry-level jobs to pay rent. After getting my AA, I decided to take time off from school and explore my options.
The decision to transition from a full-time student to part-time, and then to taking a complete break from school left me feeling ashamed. I was devastated and frustrated because of my love for learning and lack of direction. I felt like I was falling behind. I felt like a quitter. I had very straightforward, idealistic expectations for my life after high school: attend college for four years, earn a Bachelor’s degree, then enter a career field that I loved and was passionate about. That was the “right” way to do it. However, these unrealistic expectations that I had for myself did not line up with reality and left no room for any life changes outside of my education. In the long run they led to many disappointments that I was unable to process.
The road through education is anything but linear. Our plans can and will get disrupted because life is more complicated than our plans. We don’t always know what we want to study. We change our major multiple times. Colleges aren’t always perfect. The college experience isn’t what we expect. Finances become a larger hurdle than we thought. Family happens. Friends happen. Life happens — so our plans have to flex and change along with it.
The pressure to have your entire educational and professional career planned out by the time you graduate high school is real. It’s easy to look around and see how everyone else (seemingly) has their life all figured out.
What I learned through my educational experience is that even though we may feel pressure from people around us, oftentimes we are the ones being hardest on ourselves. It’s important to notice our own harsh self-criticism and learn how to be kind to ourselves in the unexpected.
Taking time off from school gave me the time I needed to get to know myself better and space to explore my passions and gifts. I wrestled with questions like What do I need? What do I want? What is best for me, right now and in the future? What are my values and will my decisions honor them?
I still grew physically, mentally, and emotionally, and established a healthy foundation for myself when it came time to re-enter college. Now I can confidently say that my area of study in college is something that I am passionate about and a degree I know will be worth investing my time and money in.
The educational journey is far from a direct path to success. Discovering your gifts and passions and how they play out in that journey can be harder than you think, and that timeline almost never plays out how you expect it to. When we take the time to explore our gifts and talents, to ask ourselves what we want, and to be kind to ourselves no matter what our journey looks like, we can move forward on a path that will help us reach the full potential of our passions, inspiring not only ourselves but the people around us as well.