A lot of us feel pressured by others and ourselves to know exactly what we are going to do with our lives. Whether it is at the age of 18, 22, or even 25. Yes, most of us start maturing at the age of 18, but that shouldn't mean you need to know what you want to do in life. I switched programs twice in the beginning of university and would love to share with you my experience, how I am still graduating in four years, and a piece of advice.
Rewind to September 2016. This is when I entered my first year of university in the Bachelor of Journalism program at Thompson Rivers University. I had no doubts that I was in the program for me. Since middle school, I loved to write and thought a career as a journalist was a good fit for me. Unfortunately, the bulk of the first year of the degree came with taking required introductory courses that didn't focus on journalism as much as I wanted to. I was motivated and ready to learn about journalism, but had no choice but to take introductory courses in broad subjects. One of my required electives at the time was Introduction to Marketing offered in TRU's School of Business and Economics. I didn't think much of the course prior to the first lecture. I was pleasantly surprised by how interesting the class was on the very first day. The strategy and psychology behind marketing was very intriguing to me and I found myself truly enjoying going to class. After the class ended, I knew I wanted to learn more about marketing and, with that being said, change educational and career paths.
I researched TRU's Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) degree and discussed the program with an academic counsellor. I decided to take three introductory courses for the BBA degree in the summer of 2017. It was rough. Nobody wants to spend their summer inside teaching themselves mathematics, economics, and business... but there I was. I spent countless hours trying to teach myself math and economics, and it was truly not clicking in my mind. At the end of the summer, I wasn't pleased with my performance in the courses but still chose to stick with the BBA program. When September rolled around, I was hopeful that I could perform better in the program since the courses would be face-to-face rather than online. The mathematical aspect of my courses still was not clicking in my mind, even after tutoring sessions and talking to a professor one-on-one. Math was not one of my strongest subjects in high school, but I was not convinced that switching programs was the best course of action until the end of the fall semester. I wanted to obtain a marketing major so I could become an expert in the subject, but couldn't go through the pain of taking accounting, economics, and mathematical courses.
In December of 2017, I switched to TRU's Bachelor of Arts, Major in Communication program. The courses reflected my strengths in writing and allowed me to explore my interest in designing. It also gave me the opportunity to pursue a marketing minor and take various marketing courses as electives. It was a much better fit because I could still pursue a marketing career. Needless to say, school has been so much better since I switched to the program! It has been better solely because of what I am learning in my classes, which are topics that interest me. When you are interested in what you are learning, it makes doing homework and studying a little bit easier.
Not every student graduates in four years, which makes me feel grateful that I still can after switching programs. It wasn't an easy decision to try to graduate in four years. Once I started the communications and marketing program, I knew I would need to take a full course-load each semester until I graduate. That realization didn't make my decision hard, what made it hard was knowing I needed to take online classes during the upcoming two summers to catch up. I wasn't thrilled about that to say the least, but I focused on the "bigger picture". Graduating on-time meant I could earn my degree faster and cheaper.
I thought for the longest time that I needed a BBA and a major in marketing to pursue a marketing career. I eventually realized that it didn't matter. I started taking more marketing courses, volunteering in marketing, earning summer employment in marketing, and now I am here... in the last few months of my degree. If you want something bad enough, you will make it happen. It's as simple as that.
Take a few breaths if you are considering changing programs in school. As a university student, right NOW is the best time to make changes like that because time is truly on your side. A lot of students change their minds during their education so you are surprisingly among the majority! I suggest doing research on other programs you may like, what careers you can get after you graduate, and sit down with an academic counsellor.