Throughout my entire freshman year of college, a wave of panic would crash over me whenever I was asked, "what major are you?" I didn't have a major. I wanted to be a communication studies major, but I wasn't. I was undeclared. Just that word gave me anxiety. I was feeling like just a number; one of many in this great scary school that didn't feel like it had a place for me. I'm not one to settle for being inadequate or unhappy, and I usually work hard to find my groove, but once I find it, I'm good to go.
My entire freshman year, I never did. It never fully clicked, I always felt one step out of place. It was a year of growth, that's for sure. And it was a year of testing and building and learning so much beyond just the lecture hall. The stress of school was having tangible effects on my relationship with school and my positivity in general. It wasn't a positive source in my life. Then I had my epiphany. The two classes that brought me the most joy and success (both personally and academically) were speech and theater. They came naturally; I worked hard and wanted to invest hours working on my essays, projects, and presentations for those classes. Not only did I do well in those classes, but I am positive that they helped me find the spark and do better in my other classes as well.
When I love what I am doing, I throw all of myself into it, and am exponentially more successful than when I am drudging through. When I am working hard in a creative space, literally every other aspect of my life operates at a pace conducive to happiness and joy and fulfillment and my definition of success. It came to me as I was driving back from shooting 13 Reasons.
Once I made my decision, I actually found myself excited to go back to school and start classes rather than dreading it. I don't want to spend my college career going through the motions to earn a degree that didn’t fulfill me. I needed to follow that spark. It's a special and rare thing when you encounter those moments of pure energy, inspiration, and creative fire, and you must follow them.
If that means writing a 1000 page thesis DO IT, if that means landing a killer internship at a research lab DO IT, if that means finding your spark, your community, your people in that place you least expected, GO FOR IT. I guess what I'm trying to say is that you can't follow that path that is practical, follow that one that you're passionate about.
