In high school I had no idea what I wanted to major in for college. Everyone around me seemed to have their next four years planned out, while I was just trying to muddle through math class. It was definitely difficult at times to believe that I would become interested enough in anything to devote four years to it. At the same time, it made me happy to not know what my future looked like. I remember being in a high school advisor meeting with about ten other juniors and the advisor asked us each to share career/major aspirations. Everyone had such detailed answers, but when it got to me, I just said, “I don’t know yet.” Often times that can be a daunting answer, yet I only remember being so grateful that I didn’t know because it meant that anything could interest me. Any subject or field could spark a passion and the unknown felt so exciting. I checked off “Undecided” on all my college essays and crossed my fingers. One of reasons I ended up choosing UC Berkeley was the wide variety of majors offered and the freedom to explore different subjects. It felt like I couldn’t go wrong with any of the majors at Cal.
This approach to college/major interests worked well up until the end of my freshman year. Finals season for second semester was approaching and suddenly I was feeling the pressure to decide. While not planning out my whole life was okay, I realized I needed to decide my next three years soon. Majors have quite a few requirements and I wanted to graduate on time. There were a few majors I found interesting, but after meeting with the majors’ advisors I still could not find something that sparked a passion. I was so desperate for an answer, I even spent a few evenings looking up “What Should I Major In” quizzes. At one point I was about ready to write all the majors down on pieces of paper and pull one out of a hat. Unwilling to let fate make this decision I gave myself a deadline of one week to narrow it down to three majors. I would take one class for each major next semester and then decide. I thought this was a good plan, except I still had no idea what I was interested in. I realized I needed an outside perspective and decided to go to my favorite professor’s office hours and ask for advice. I had been to quite a few of her office hours before and I figured she knew enough about me to somewhat gauge my strengths and interests. During the meeting she recommended I look into the Geography major. To be honest I did not know that Cal has a Geography Department before that meeting.
I looked into the major and it intrigued me, so I ended up going to a Geography professor’s presentation at the Maps and Sciences library. I found it so fascinating because it was a completely new way of looking at the world for me. The next semester I took a geography class, did some research with a professor, and found a passion for the major. It requires you to question everything you thought was known and delve into the complexities of trying to find an answer. For every question about “where?”, geography compels you to ask “why?”