“Here is your four year plan!”

This is what happens when you enter college, choose a major, and are given classes that fit your major’s curriculum: you’re determined to get through these four years just like you did in high school. Right now you are head over heels about your semester. You’re taking four classes, one a day, four days a week. This feels like heaven to you because in high school you were taking eight classes every single day, except for Saturday and Sunday of course. In high school you were guaranteed to finish in four years. Not because it was ideal, but because it was a must. College however, is completely different. One could spend a decade in College if they are not careful.

While in college life happens and you begin to realize that you’re not the same person as you once were when you first begun. You came to college with a young mind, still having your parents make important decisions for you and being babied every step of the way. You had no idea what you were doing. But as you began to wean yourself off of your parents, maybe after a semester in school, or perhaps a year, you start to think differently. You’re thinking differently because you are maturing, your mind is expanding, not necessarily just from the classroom, but also from being around people of all walks of life. You want different things out of life now, and then it hits you that your major or curriculum will not provide what you’re craving for so you change your major.

Changing your major changes your entire curriculum and that means taking new classes. This also means setting yourself back a year. Your four year plan has now turned into a five year plan and that’s okay because you are finally following your heart and going after what you think are your dreams. High school did not allow you to follow your dreams. In high school everyone had to do the same thing, and get out at the same time or be looked at as a failure. You were not taught about life, and how to prepare for setbacks that may come while in college, you just did what you had to do because it was a requirement.

You change your major once again.

No one tells you that college is a journey. It’s a journey because you’re allowed to make your own choices and change things to suit your wants and needs. It is a journey because you learn so much about yourself. It is a journey because college is not free.

It costs to learn once you leave grade school, and if monetary needs are not met in college it could set one back a semester or two. Your five year plan has now turned into a seven year plan, however you are still determined to stick out. You want to finish what you have started, and you take on loans that you have no idea how you will pay for in the end.—And taking on these loans are okay, because following your dreams is a must. You’re not exactly sure how you will find a job in your field, but you’re very optimistic. You begin to mature more in age and also in mind. You realize that you want a life of your own after being away from your parents for two years. You know that what you’re studying in college will not provide you with money to live the life that you have envisioned. You start to look over your life and everything you have done in college. And, you begin to wonder if you had wasted your time.

You change your major for a third time.

You realize that you need to pick a career that will provide you with a job wherever you go. You are no longer worried about your dreams, but about what will provide you with money to pay for rent and countless bills, and you no longer think like a dreamer, but instead about how to be successfull. You set yourself back another year, and your seven year plan has become an eight year plan. But, you are finally content with the decision you have made, you feel like a more responsible adult, and all is right within your world once again. College is more than four years, you enter as an adolescent and leave as an adult.