English is a LIT major
The number one question for college students:
"What's your MAJOR?"
This five letter word carries with it the weight of a reputation, future, goals, and maybe even personality. It is simultaneously daunting and exciting because it is ultimately how we define ourselves. Throughout high school and my first year in College, I was plagued by uncertainty- what am I going to do with my life ? How do I know this is my path?
I envied the successful, ambitious, and steady-minded individuals (like my brother) whose confidence never wavered- I thought my indecisiveness and confusion made me inferior. I began my freshman year at the University of Southern California as a psychology major, unsatisfied and fretful of a future that was not my own. It wasn't until my second year that I understood that my "major" was not fixed, and I encompassed the power to change it. We evolve as people, we change and it propels us forward. I realize now that uncertainty, doubt, and confusion are absolutely normal, maybe even encouraging. For me, the answer was always written on the (page) but I needed a sense of independence and confidence in myself in order to unveil the parental and societal pressures that prevented me from seeing my true passion.
Words, stories, and poems have been my outlet to freedom of thought and expression. During high school I was an unhappy person, and at the time I attributed this to unrequited love or being excluded from popular groups. Now as a Junior at USC, with the knowledge and experience I’ve acquired thus far, it is clear to me that the cause of my suffering was not a result of teenage angst, but a consequence of the small, narrow world I existed in. I was unable and afraid to expand my mind, partially due to the constraints of a religious private school. Whenever my mind did roam to the places it wanted, needed to go, I was reprimanded and told to follow the rules. I was an elephant set in a chicken’s pen, and it is no mystery to me now why I was miserable and lonely- pushing against tin fences to reach something real, yet nevertheless confined.
During my time in high school, my refuge was a blank piece of paper with a black pen, and the multitude of pages I read over and over again from my favorite books. This sheet of paper was my escape- it was the outlet for me to question my reality and all the knowledge that was instilled in me. On my small piece of paper, the world began to expand, and I saw that everything I was taught wasn't necessarily the absolute truth, but rather one note in the symphony of theories, religions, and knowledge that comprised the world. So I suppose this leads me to my decision to become an English major. I am passionate about literature and grateful for words, wanting to share this with as many people as I humanly can. For all those stuck in a bubble, feeling despair as I did, need to see and experience the world through novels, poems, and words of those different from us- words that challenge, inspire, and shape us into better human beings. Words that expand our worlds, begging questions, broadening our perceptions and perspectives. I am happy to say that I finally found the courage to make this change. It is exciting, finally capitalizing on my passion and knowing it has set me free. I am so grateful to USC, literature, and writing because there is nothing I’ve experienced more beautiful than a free mind.