| Henry (Class of 2022) is majoring in Communications and minoring in Psychology. He is part of the DREAM Program and a WBRR Radio Show Host on campus. Henry has done a Customer Success coop at Knoq. His favorite class at Northeastern has been Public Speaking and Sports Psychology with Prof Kimball. |
I was going to be the best doctor the world had ever seen. I was going to single-handedly cure cancer…at least that’s what I thought in 9th grade. In 10th grade I was going to be the world’s best detective, ridding the world of all crime. 11th grade Henry was going to be the best President the country’s ever seen, eliminating poverty while simultaneously defeating global warming. 12th grade Henry was just hoping to get into college.
So, when I got to Northeastern I was about as undeclared as one could be. I was back in the “world’s greatest doctor” mindset so my first semester consisted of almost all science courses, with the exception of English. I quickly learned this was not the path for me. It started with the complete lack of desire to wake up for my 8 a.m. Psychology class, then came the slowly declining grades and interest in Environmental Science. The last clue that science was not the right path for me came with my inability to get a passing grade on even one assignment in my Biology class. I could write a whole other post on that bio class but all I’ll say for now is that I should have listened to my mom when she told me college Biology would not quite be the same as Freshmen High School biology. I had taken an introductory course for essentially 4 different majors and felt further away from declaring a major than when I started.
The despair that flooded my body at the beginning of Freshman year was replaced just as quickly with the optimism that came with being able to choose my classes for the next semester. After eliminating virtually any major even tangentially related to science I did a full 180. My spring semester was filled by purely humanities courses and it was possibly the greatest decision I’ve ever made. The first class I took was a Philosophy course which I truly enjoyed but contained a few too many unanswerable questions for me. Next up was Criminal Justice, a continuation of 10th grade Henry’s dream. Again, a very interesting class but the various issues plaguing our criminal justice system became too evident and too much to bear. Elementary Italian was next on the list and I am now taking my third (!) Italian class but I just couldn’t see it as a major for myself.
The final course I took that semester was Intro to Communications. I do not think I have ever loved or hated a class more. When the topics we were discussing were of interest to me, it didn’t even feel like a class, it was pure entertainment. But, on the other hand, the topics that didn’t interest me…it took everything I had not to take a nap during class. I felt closer to a major than I did the past semester, but still no end in sight. So, for those counting, that is intro classes for 7 different majors with nothing to show for it, or so I thought.
Now in the summer after my first year, I decided to take summer classes. The first class I signed up for was Introduction to Microeconomics. I had always been fairly good at math and thought the “real world” applications might interest me. Oh man, was I wrong… I won’t go as far to say it was Biology-level bad but “good” is not a word I would use to describe my performance in that class.
The other class I took was a second Communications course, Public Speaking. When I tell you, I saw angels and heard the Hallelujah chorus, I am not exaggerating. To this day it is the best class I have ever taken at any level of school. I felt like it was made for me. The class was literally a grade on talking and boy do I love to talk. More than that, it helped me realize the range of Communications. That class showed me that I could find everything I wanted in a Communications major because I had all the flexibility to study exactly what I wanted.
Declaring Communications as my major was the surest I have been in any decision I have made. It may have taken EIGHT different introduction courses, but I don’t regret taking any of those classes. I was able to utilize the resources of the Explore Program to their fullest extent and find the right path for myself. I won’t be the best doctor anyone has ever seen or be ridding the world of crime as a detective, and I most likely won’t be President, but according to some people, including the Director of the Explore Program herself (with video proof), I am and forever will be…Mr. Explore!
