Student Blog: Changing My Major

I wish this could be a "Changing My Major" from Fun Home song moment, but alas, it is not. It is just a simple college student, realizing they didn't like their major and switching. I am not shying away from changing my major. I've changed my major a few times. No, I'm not one of the people who have switched their major like ten times in college (not that there's anything wrong with that), but I have switched my major before.

A few months before I went to college, I switched my major from Biology to undecided. Two months before I moved in, I switched my major again, from undecided to Communication Arts. I knew I wanted to do something in the media. I always felt a pull toward doing something that was able to help people. Personally, I knew how much certain television shows and movies had helped me growing up both mentally and emotionally.

For me, even being a part of that process would mean the world to me. I just never really talked about it, and Communication Arts was the broadest major. So, I settled on that and it was fun. I'm not going to lie, I liked Communication Arts as my major, in fact, it is still my major. However, the summer before my fall semester junior year (so last semester), I had a realization that I was just coasting in my major. I'm smart and I do not usually struggle in school, depending on the subject, but despite that, I felt like I was doing basically nothing. So, for that fall semester I took an introduction to advertising and principles of public relations, two courses I was extremely interested in. After a very interesting semester, my major was changed in about a month and a half; to Advertising.

I knew I wanted to be an advertising major because it allowed me the freedom to go into different fields under advertising, every field has some kind of advertising or PR department. I knew I had loved the creative aspect and wanted to know more, but another reason was I had taken a marketing class my sophomore year and found an interest in marketing towards people, who you market certain products to, and why and how you do that. Advertising covers both of those. Another thing, at St. John's University, the advertising major was created to have three different concentrations: account management, media planning and buying, and the creative track. I picked the creative track, but have managed to create as much room in my schedule as possible to take classes recommended for the media planning and buying concentration to broaden my horizons and sharpen my skills. I love the creative aspect behind advertising, and I took a class this semester that taught me about Adobe: Photoshop and how to use it to create advertisements. I was a little frustrated at first because I had never used the program before, but after a lot of practice, I had gotten the hang of it and was creating my own advertisements that will be going on my Portfolio. We even got to create a fake TIME magazine cover (which I did picture).

You know when you do something and it just clicks? Like the feeling of like yes, I get this, and I want to keep doing it? I may not get everything in advertising, but almost everything I do in advertising, it clicks like that, and I want to keep learning and doing more. I have not had this feeling in my major ever, but the last time I had this was as a Production Assistant for All Shook Up at my school. The feeling of this is something you're supposed to be doing and nothing in the world can stop you. With advertising, I know I've excelled and I have managed to get the attention of both advertising deans with this as well. I was, also, able to earn myself two internships this summer, one with an advertising agency and the other as a social media marketing intern. Both are remote, so I am able to manage my time with them. However, I never expected to get this far so early on in my major.

Especially since I switched as a junior, there was the fear that I would not finish school on time. I'm lucky enough that I have enough credits that I will be able to graduate on time, which is very exciting. If I have any advice to anyone who wants to switch their major, if you're unfamiliar with the major, take the intro class with a really good teacher, and ask them questions, be persistent with the class, because you never really know what's going to happen when you change your major.