Stop gaslighting yourself.

I know this statement has made you think about those times where you told yourself “I can afford to skip my morning lecture a couple of times this week. I’ll just look at the PowerPoint slides after they’re posted!” and “I’ll just rest my eyes for five minutes… and then I’ll keep studying.” In this case, though, I’m not referring to class attendance nor your sleeping habits — I’m referring to your major.

College is expensive and time-consuming, especially here at Vanderbilt, the “Harvard of the South.” Whether your tuition is fully funded by scholarships or paid for out-of-pocket, a great deal of money is being invested into your education. However, you, as a student, make the ultimate investment: time. According to a report by Campus Grotto — a publication that offers advice for college students — college students generally spend anywhere from 17 to 25 hours per week attending classes, doing homework and studying. Why should you waste that time and energy studying something that you’re not passionate about?

Allow me to be corny as I invoke the age-old saying: “Time is money.” In the case of a college student, the two are deeply intertwined — a college education requires you to invest both time and money to receive a degree, sometimes with the added investment of pursuing an even higher degree afterward. As students, we tend to put so much emphasis on the money part that we forget about the importance of time — the countless hours spent in lectures, discussions and labs, not to mention the studying and homework. Why spend all that time on a topic you couldn’t care less about? And, more broadly, why do we allow the stigma surrounding certain majors to intimidate us into opting for a “more prestigious” option?

As someone who recently went through this internal debate, I come from a place of sympathy, not hostility. I have been interested in psychology and mental disorders since middle school, but I also had a broad interest in the underlying neurobiology of such disorders. Therefore, when completing my college applications, I took advantage of this broad interest and chose “neuroscience” as my intended major of study — a decision further supported by my graduation from a research-focused magnet program. I admittedly reveled in the responses I received upon telling others I was majoring in neuroscience: “Wow! You must be so smart!”

And so on and so forth.

This validation from others — despite the torturous hours of chemistry lab and repeated blows to my academic self-esteem after multiple STEM exams — encouraged me to remain a neuroscience major.

During winter break of sophomore year, I had an epiphany. I realized two important things: I didn’t enjoy what I was learning, and, therefore, I wasn’t learning much from my classes. Had I been interested in a few of the neuroscience classes I had taken? Sure. But even the courses I had chosen to complete for the major had veered more towards psychology rather than biological neuroscience. I had essentially been gaslighting myself into thinking that if I kept learning more and more of the material, I would eventually grow enamored with it, simply because I wanted to graduate with a degree in neuroscience — and, admittedly, earn bragging rights. However, if I’m to spend four years at a university, investing my money, time, energy and even sanity, why should it be spent forcing myself to “learn” just for the sake of a flashy degree?

Since switching to psychology — and subsequently swapping out half my classes — I can enjoy my course load. I feel much less stressed since I no longer force myself to suffer through the arduous requirements of such a complicated major just for the sake of recognition that won’t matter nearly as much in 10 years as it does now. After all, how often will we be asked the question in the future “What was your major in college?” How many opportunities will there be for “prestige-seeking” and “people-pleasing” via our majors once we leave Vanderbilt and enter the next chapter of our lives? In centering my college career around something other than external validation, I can finally allow myself to focus on helping others and pursuing careers that I am passionate about.

When choosing our majors, we must also prioritize our health and well-being. Wren Vinavongso, a sophomore, initially chose biomedical engineering as their intended major before switching to child development.

“I chose biomedical engineering mainly because I wanted to do something with medicine but I also didn’t want to be a doctor. Engineering felt like it would be an interesting career path to pursue. I liked the thought of being able to help develop medical technologies. I decided to switch for the sake of my health. Academic re-evaluation made me see how much I didn’t want to go in the projected path for BME.”

Critics of choosing a major based on passion might argue that pursuing an arduous major is important for long-term financial benefits. Yes, it’s true that earning income largely dictates one’s standard of living, but do you know what’s also incredibly vital to long-term well-being and success? Your mental well-being. The average person will spend 90,000 hours at work over their lifetime — that’s more than 10 full years of their life spent working. If you spend this considerable amount of time in a career that doesn’t bring you a sense of fulfillment, the mental toll it will exact on you may be intense. You’ll live a life in which you’ll likely wonder “What if?” as you spend your life laboring away.

There is nothing wrong with having interests in uncommon or unappreciated subject areas. Instead of suppressing these interests, we should give them the room to blossom into something extraordinary. Think about it: If you are someone who jumps at the very first opportunity to engage in spirited philosophical debates with others, do you truly think that you would be happy working with data and computers every day? If you passionately follow politics, do you truly want to endure the arduous struggle of becoming a physician just for the sake of having the title?

We must allow ourselves to invest our lives into what makes us happy. We owe ourselves at least that much. After all, if your days are spent doing what you love, you will never work a day in your life.