Student Blog: Back to School: A Major Change

Hello! My name is Kimmy and I’m in my 2nd year at Florida Atlantic University. I’m very excited to kickstart my blog with a recent dilemma. I hope some of you can relate and feel some sort of comfort in the struggle. 

Deciding your major can feel like the most amount of pressure in the world. When I made my decision last year, I dodged that pressure by picking something familiar. Theater was all I had known, the only thing I thought I had a real passion for. I was too nervous to pursue performance so I threw myself into the world of tech. I had run lights for 2 shows at my theater so why not!

What I didn’t realize was I had no particular passion for technical theater. I felt no spark taking my first scenic design class and working on production felt like a chore. The idea of being a “techie” sounded fun in theory, but put into practice I felt very out of place. Turns out it wasn’t just bonding with theater kids and occasionally pitching in to make the show look good, it comes with a lot of chopping wood and a lot of facing my fear of heights. I have so much admiration for the designers and technical team in the theater world, but it wasn’t for me. 

The most general, basic writing classes in college reignited my love for writing and gave me the spark I had been waiting for. I’ve always enjoyed writing, I was a pretty solid essay writer in elementary school through high school and felt some sort of ease with it. But the incredible professors I had my freshman year made me see writing in a much clearer way. It could be an escape and an outlet just as theater had been for me when I was younger. I wrote an essay about the film “Everything Everywhere All at Once” last semester and it was the most cathartic experience. It felt like me, it felt like everything I wanted to put out into the world, I just loved every second I spent working on it. I naturally became a very vulnerable writer when I realized the power of putting feelings into words. 

Any friend of mine knows that so much of my free time is spent thinking about, appreciating, or analyzing whatever movie, tv show, musical, etc I’m obsessed with. I do it for fun. I like to think I can make a career out of putting passion into words. I like to think I could write something of my own one day, something witty and warm. If I could do that forever, I would. If I come to think I’m bad at it, I want to keep trying. 

I’ve been worrying a lot about what is a hobby and what is a career. I’ve always felt like theater has been a hobby. Something I love and something I don’t want to get twisted into a means of employment instead of pure fun. I felt like the tech world took away the magic of the arts of theater for me, while it gave me a clearer idea of what a career would be like. I’m a very creative person and I think it’s been hard for me to see that. I’ve had a director yell at me when I called myself uncreative; I think I need to start listening to people like her. I am just itching to create. I’m realizing even back in the depths of my theater experiences I was trying to find the funniest moments I could, to be the one to come up with a clever addition to any scene. I wanted to make something my own. 

So, with all of that in my brain, this semester has been very reflective thus far. Especially meeting with my advisor and making the official switch has felt so huge. The huge feeling I think I was missing when I initially chose a major. 

I plan to study Multimedia: Film, Video, and New Media going forward. Considering I’ve taken so many theater classes last year, I’ll be keeping theater as a minor so I can continue with the classes I’ve enjoyed and perform whenever I can. I’m still enjoying my basic writing classes but I’m excited to get deeper. It feels freeing to explore myself outside of my theatrical identity and expose my creative sides. 

I think deciding your major is mostly deciding what you want to be good at and pursuing the classes that you feel the most growth from. Sometimes it’s not where you thought you’d be or what you’re used to, but it’s all about the journey (or something like that).