Major confusions

About five years ago, my high school organized a trip to New York City.
One night, they took us to see the acclaimed play “Avenue Q,” a raunchy musical performed entirely with puppets. I’ll never forget the opening song, which managed to articulate the most crucial question in my college existence.

The song is titled “What Do You Do with a B.A. in English?”

Now that I’m be- ginning to figure out my plans for the “real world,” I’m coming
to terms with the fact that my major will not lead me to make millions of dollars. And it can be difficult to feel confident when many of my friends are, say, on track to enter careers as successful lawyers.

But the truth is, according to studies,only 26 percent of lawyers from U.S. News and World Report’s top-10 law schools are satisfied with their work. The percentage of satisfaction increases for lower-ranked schools, whose graduates also tend to work in smaller, lesser- known law firms.

Even within the field of law, satisfaction does not come from the assumed “best jobs” in the “best firms.”

My major is creative writing, and I’m a double minor in gender studies and art history. I am now in the process of figuring not only what to do with this degree but, more importantly, what to do with this degree in this of our economy.

I realize that I am not alone; even within careers that are assumed to be on the upper tiers of society, everyone has to figure out how to make it work for them in order to be happy.

Although I’m scared about the future, I feel confident that it will all work out. I had no idea what I was doing when I entered college, and I managed to figure that out as well. I’m happy that I didn’t rush into anything for reasons that were not my own and instead studied what I found interesting, which will hopefully lead to a career in something I find equally as interesting.

My advice for any undergraduate student still uncertain of their path would be to just find out what you are truly interested in, and not feel pressured to do anything that doesn’t feel right, or figure it all out in a certain amount of time.

We have to be confident in ourselves that if we are hard workers in our chosen major, it will translate into a number of fields and occupations.

Sure, we could have majored in something that doesn’t directly launch us into a million-dollar career, but if a Muppet on Broadway can be happy, then there’s surely hope for us as well.