It’s an odd thing, nearing the halfway mark of four years at Stanford. I thought I would know so much more about myself now, be so much more confident in what I want out of life and who I am. Instead, I think I am more lost, more scared and more confused than when I entered. 

Balancing on the edge of underclassman and upperclassman, I’ve found myself forced to finally confront a mid-college crisis that has been bubbling under my skin for the past two years.

I can’t say when the feeling started. Perhaps it is better understood as a culmination of sharp moments of conflict interspersed within the quotidian routine of class, clubs and research. 

My academic advisor ends our long conversation on whether I should take a final or attend my brother’s graduation with a pointed question disguised as a casual observation: I see you haven’t declared yet. I shrink in mild embarrassment. I tell her I plan on declaring biology, but have not been able to find a major advisor. As she opens the faculty page on the biology website, and I pretend I haven’t already read through every professor’s biography, I find myself doubting my own reasoning. Is it truly because I can’t send an email to a few professors? Or does the major not feel like the right fit? 

Reflecting on the classes I’ve taken, I have most loved my history courses. But I couldn’t major in history, could I? I’ve always been good at science – that was my thing. Everything I’ve done over the past two years has, in some way, related to science or medicine. I briefly dipped my toes into the humanities as a wide eyed freshman, but I quickly succumbed to flake culture as the academic pressure got to me. I couldn’t go to the literary magazine meetings on Thursday when I had a chemistry problem set due every Friday. How could I take a British history course while joining a research lab and taking organic chemistry?

A few weeks later, I’m talking with my volunteer coordinator while painting coral sculptures for the hospital school. My doubts seep into the external world as I ask her how she knew she wanted to study American Studies and what she thought she would do after college with her major. I’ve been flirting with the idea of double majoring ever since speaking with my academic advisor, but the economics of it seem irrational. What purpose is there in getting a degree in biology and history? Both have relatively dismal job prospects without some graduate education. 

She tells me she didn’t know what she wanted to do after college. I tell her that, at Stanford, not knowing what you want to do can feel like a death sentence. There are so many opportunities here, and so many driven, passionate people who know how to leverage the seemingly endless resources to launch themselves to, both metaphorically and literally, the moon. She tells me that may be one of the flaws of universities like Stanford are rising tuition costs. Back in the 90s, taking fun classes and spending an extra year in college only cost an extra $1000.

She senses I’m unsettled, or perhaps it’s obvious I have no idea what I’m doing. “You’re premed, aren’t you? Majoring in history could be interesting,” she says. She tells me about her best friend from high school. She loved writing: editor in chief of her school newspaper, speech and debate champion. She wanted to be a journalist. There was no question she would get into a prestigious college, and, when the time came, she was choosing between MIT for biology and Harvard for English. Her parents wanted her to be a doctor, so she ended up attending MIT, going to medical school and becoming a physician.

And she was absolutely miserable.

But that couldn’t be me, could it? In high school, I edited the literary magazine and wrote poetry, but I also loved my science and math classes. I did the traditional nerdy science kid things – science fair, Science Olympiad, math club – and I did them decently well.

I think about it more. Not just my major, but my post graduation plans. In the heat of physics and biochemistry midterms, I procrastinate by looking into the requirements for law school. I research how to get into consulting and what target schools are. As the spiral continues, the passage of time becomes increasingly antagonistic. I’m a third quarter sophomore, a rising junior. At this point, if you want to enter these careers, you need to have internships lined up and experience from clubs and classes.

I talk with my history lecturer during office hours. She tells me she took one history class in college. In her senior year, she realized that if she did nothing, nothing would happen after graduation – for the first time, her life was entirely in her own hands. So she applied to earn a master’s at Cambridge and never looked back. She tells me it’s hard to find tenure track positions in history. In her specific field, there are 1-2 open positions per year. I ask her if she ever wonders if she made the wrong choice, if she thinks about how things could have turned out differently. She tells me that life will always be full of regrets, that they only accumulate over time. I ask her how I can know I made the right decision. She tells me you can’t – you will never know what the future will look like. But she also tells me that whenever she has doubts, she looks back at her 23 year old self who fell in love studying history in the library and decided that is exactly what she wanted to do with her life. In that moment, she knew what she wanted and she trusted herself. With all of the information she had, she made what she thought was the best choice for herself and decided to pursue a career in academia. 

“You want to be a doctor, don’t you?” I hear this question again, now from my lecturer. I tell her I love working with people one on one, I’m good at science. She tells me there is a difference between being good at something and loving something. Life is more fulfilling when you do something you love.

I sit with this for a while. These are all old cliches – the college student facing the real world, the young person conflicted about their future, follow your passions, do what you love. I’ve heard it a hundred times, I’ll hear it a hundred more – so why are they so unsettling now?

I think I’ve said I don’t know more times in the past month than I have in a lifetime because I genuinely do not know. I do not know what I want to major in, I do not know if I’ve made the most of being at Stanford, I do not know if I want to be a doctor, I do not know if I’ll be successful after graduating if I don’t know what I’m doing right now, I do not know what I want, what I will want, what I used to want, what the future holds and what I’ll regret. I know I love stories, I love people, I love learning. But where does that leave me?

Perhaps that is exactly the point. At the end of my sophomore year.