In high school, students are expected to know everything from the college they want to attend, to the career they’d like to pursue all by the end of their senior year.

I barely knew what I would eat for lunch during my final year of high school, so being met with such large decisions caused a lot of unncessary anxiety for me.

I had always had interests but not anything that I felt I could commit my whole life to.

Something that was always a constant in my life was journalism.

From a young age, I loved to read and write about what I had read to the delight and some times annoyance of my parents.

In high school I even did a year on the newspaper and really enjoyed practicing my writing skills and learning new techniques.

Yet, when it was time to begin the dreaded application process I had no idea what to put.

Coming from a lower income home, one of my main goals in life is to have financial freedom when I’m older and not be restricted for monetary reasons.

This factored in with my lack of commitment to my various interests meant I had a big problem when it came to deciding a major.

I remember spending countless hours on Google searching, “what is the salary for a ___ major?” and comparing several different options.

Who made more a journalist or a forensic scientists (spoiler: it’s the scientist).

In the short amount of time I’ve been in college I’ve changed my major 4 times and each time, the idea of being stuck with it for the rest of my life caused me to change it to something else.

In the summer of 2017 I came to the realization that if I continued switching my major to fit a hypothetical income I had to meet, I would be in school for a long time.

I decided I should go back to what has always been a constant in my life: journalism.

No matter what I changed my major to I always had journalism in the back of my mind.

Joining “The Union” this fall was one of the best decisions I’ve made for myself since attending El Camino.

I’m often met with challenges I would never be introduced to if I didn’t decide to put my fears aside and go with my gut.

It’s OK to not know what you want to do at a young age, trial and error will eventually lead you to where you need to be.