By Amanda DeCamp

American poet, Robert Frost said, “College is a refuge from hasty judgment.” The education one receives in college provides students with the knowledge to make better decisions than they made in high school. By the end of a four-year stay at the University, one may know what they want to do with the rest of their lives. The average midlife crisis occurs at age 46, according to a study done by Cornell University. In college, it happens around the beginning of junior year. The leaves change colors, the weather changes to cold, and the average University student contemplates changing majors. Upperclassmen find themselves situated into classes of their major, surrounded by faces that they recognize, and professors who know them by name. This may seem like a favorable situation when compared with required classes that can have hundreds of undergraduates and professors who know students only as a number. However, just around the time that one finds oneself in an upper level course within the major, is just about the same time that person becomes bored with the repetitive material. Every one has doubts – no matter if a student knew they would always be an education major from the moment they started school as a child or if a student picked their major for the first time after being forced to declare it as a sophomore. Every one, at least once in their college career contemplates the change. Discontent with a lifestyle that provided happiness for many years, boredom with things or people that have previously held great interest or feeling adventurous and wanting to do something completely different are all factors which Team Technology found common among people in their mid forties. Further, they found that people going through a midlife crisis question the meaning of life and are confused about their identity. Sound familiar? You’re not alone. Aside from the large population of forty-something year olds going through this difficult time, your peers at the University, too, are going through a mid-college crisis. Perhaps there are no gray hairs, balding or wrinkles triggering this change, let’s hope not anyway. But there are professors, peers and even pimples holding students back from continuing with their major. By junior or senior year, students have had most of the professors from the major for at least one class. This may not be the case for larger majors such as business or communications, but even these majors have the well-known professors whom everyone knows. Just as a good teacher influences their student to be like them, and makes the student happy to be in that major, a bad teacher can make that student run for the hills. When a real headache of a teacher comes along, students may view that person as someone who may be like his or her boss in a future job. Fellow students in a major can also influence one’s decision to make the change of major. After two years of being in classes with the same students, one may realize that these people are the same or similar to the people who will be in the next cubicle over after graduating and landing a job in the real world. Such a thought may initiate a panic attack. Finally, the stress of the future finds University upperclassmen in a funk. The competition of certain fields of interest leads a person to rethink their decisions. The amount of money one will be making after graduation is a huge factor in the decision to change majors. After some have lived away from home for four years, they are not looking forward to being dependent on their parents as they were in high school. As for those who have lived at home for the last four years, they are definitely looking forward to moving out and being independent. If you don’t know what you want to do on day one of your freshman year, you’re not alone. If you don’t know what you want to do on the last day of your senior year, you’re not alone either. Plenty of people get jobs that had nothing to do with their major after college. Professors, peers and especially your major do not make any decision for you. They do not hand you the answers. College provides you with the knowledge you need to make your own choices. It provides you with the ability to find the answers out on your own.