When I came to RPI, I had my whole professional future planned. I was part of the minority, those who had declared a major upon entering. I came in ready to blaze through college, starting right off the bat in sophomore chemistry courses.
Slowly over my freshman year, I discovered that I really didn’t want to do chemistry for the rest of my life. I enjoyed the basics, but I was having more fun being an advertising coordinator and eventually business manager on The Polytechnic than I was in my classes. I eventually decided that I needed to change my major. Not an extremely odd occurrence, you may say, but it is a rather tough decision. It is something many students are afraid of, because their parents will become angry because it wasn’t “the plan.” Should you sacrifice your happiness for the safe road?
If you don’t know what you really want, but you just want out, sit down and make a list of what you do enjoy. You could go talk to your advisor. They are supposed to be there to guide you, and while they don’t always know what to say, they could point you toward someone who could help. No one is going to tell you how you should spend the rest of your life; it is something everyone needs to figure out for themselves. Once you figure out what it is you want, contact the head of the department and talk to them to see if it is really what you want. I know it can be scary being in between, but in the end everything will work out.
If you’re at a scientific school, is it OK to switch over to business, or is it wiser to switch schools along with your major? I would have switched, as many would, if it hadn’t been for having the best friends I could have ever asked for at RPI. How can you leave people who care about you so much? People that just want to make sure you end up happy? The friends you make here may be with you for the rest of your life if you put yourself out there and find the right ones.
The one thing that would annoy me the most about being around the dorms was the majority of people sitting in their rooms on their computers saying they have friends. The one thing they didn’t mention was that the only connection they really had to any of these friends was a category-five cable.
Get a bunch of your friends together and go off-campus to dinner, one night. Sure, right now you may be thinking you can just go to some rush event when you’re bored. After rush is over, however, who will you be spending time with—what will you do?
Join a group of any sort—political, fraternal, or otherwise. You could even start your own group. Find the people around RPI who you enjoy being around and find something you all enjoy. I know a lot of people who say that without this extracurricular or that one they would not be here anymore.
