As a senior in high school, I was probably the most confused 18-year in Pennsylvania. Here I was, ready to go to college in less than a year, and I still had less than no idea about what I wanted to major in. My high school career had been really successful; I had always gotten high marks in every subject in school, which is great except for one thing--it doesn’t give you any hints when you’re trying to decide what you like enough and what you’re good enough at to major in at college. However, engineering was one thing I knew I was interested in learning more about. I had always thought of it as some vague, far away field of study. I knew what it was and a little bit about what engineers did, but I knew there had to be more information. I started looking into different engineering fields and the different projects they worked on and realized that, while I really liked the problem-solving aspect of engineering and the idea of doing that for the rest of my life, none of the fields I had researched jumped out at me as MY MAJOR. I didn’t think I knew or cared enough about engines to be a mechanical engineer, and I’m too squeamish about blood and hospitals to be a biomedical engineer [that was before I had my appendix out]. I think bridges are incredibly interesting, but I just can’t picture myself in a hardhat and steel-toe boots, so civil didn’t exactly do it for me either. I was just as confused as before I started.
This is where I was before attending an event for students applying to the Schreyer Honors College at Penn State in October of 2007. I didn’t realize that I would need to have an “intended major” by the time I came up for this visit, but sure enough, after some all-inclusive presentations, the parents and students were split into groups by their college of interest and then into groups by prospective major in order to learn more about specific requirements and tour the majors’ specific labs and facilities. As the representative from the College of Engineering read out the different majors, a large number of people got up for each major called and joined a professor from that department to embark on their tour. I felt my opportunities quickly slipping away from me as groups left while I sat and wondered wildly what to even choose. Why wasn’t there an “undecided” option? I would just have to pick something. Maybe it was a sign or just fate, but towards the end, computer science was called out as an option. I saw the professor (who is now my honors advisor) smiling, ready to show off his department and try to sell his program. However, after a few seconds had passed, still no one had stood up to go on this tour. I felt awful! I didn’t want this man to go back to his office, disappointed because no one was interested enough in his major to even take a tour of the brand new IST building. I grabbed my parents and said “come on, let’s go on this one.” I got a pair of funny looks -- I had never been especially interested in computer programming. My high school didn’t even offer it as a class. But I felt terrible for Dr. Hannan, and I thought it could be interesting to at least learn about this option that I hadn’t considered before.
Going on that tour was the best decision I’ve ever made. I realized through talking to Dr. Hannan and looking at the course requirements that computer science was actually a great fit for my interests. In high school I was really interested in different “pure” sciences and mathematics. I like to work in the abstract. However, I don’t like the idea of simply working at a college and researching and teaching for the rest of my life, which is basically the majority of your options when you major in a “pure” science. Computer science was an awesome combination of abstractness and real-world-applicable problem solving that fit my interests perfectly. I came to college my first semester with an intro programming class on my schedule, and a plan to stick with computer science until I realized it wasn’t for me. I’m now in my first semester of my junior year and over halfway done with my major -- still no realization. So the moral of the story is, don’t get set on what you think your major can or can’t be. You may realize through a twist of fate that something you never even considered is actually a perfect major for you. Okay, there are two morals. The second one is to not be afraid to take classes or a major you don’t know anything about. Computer science especially is something that people usually decide they want to major in when they’re about 12. It’s that kid in your high school who was taking apart computers and talking hard drives and motherboard when everyone else was talking school dances and football. Let me reiterate. I was not that kid! And you don’t have to be either. I’ve got a great GPA and my classes really interest me. Did I do a ton of catch-up? Maybe a little but I didn’t even really notice. So, pick computer science. And if you’re not going to pick computer science, try something else that scares you a little. It’ll pay off.
-Anna Rish
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