I know many high school seniors, college students, and even college seniors have the question of how to choose a major. Well, here's my path to ultimately becoming an economics student.
I entered UCLA as a biology major, but knew before going to orientation that I would not major in the sciences. The reason? If I chose to major in the sciences, I would be living the way I had been programmed to for countless years...go pre-med, major in biology, become a medical practitioner. In high school, my greatest strengths had been in the social sciences; thus, I started college with the intention to major in history or political science. If you don't know already, UCLA has a vast plethora of majors available to students. So I progressed through the year contemplating among the fields of geology, microbiology, sociology, international development studies, art, and more. Through my labor and social justice cluster series, I was exposed to the complex framework behind decisions, assumptions, and eventually precedents. I fell in love.
Beginning my second year of college, I took an introductory microeconomic course (macro was taken care of by the AP class...I am so happy I took it in high school). After taking the class, I was intrigued by the material but dissuaded by the type of people I encountered in the class who said they were economic majors. I was worried that I was becoming just the typical economic student. So, I went to one of my favorite professors and vented for an hour about how I don't know whether or not to pursue economics. I loved the material, but a lot of my peers' characteristics had turned me away. My professor told me that I can form and become my own type of economics student. Basically, I should not be so easily influenced by others characteristics or actions; rather, use the dissuasion as persuasion to pour my own personality over my study. He advised me a lot more in depth than I have written, but I want the focus to be on my own path so I won't continue on my venting session with him.
As you can probably tell, I continued with my economics classes. Next up was Econ 11, notoriously known to be the "weeder" class (If you don't know what that means, you'll probably find out sometime during college). I remember coasting through the first half of the course, sparingly doing homework or even paying attention in class. Since the quarter goes by so quickly, midterms came up sooner than I realized. Panicking, I felt more stress than I have ever endured for any test. Here the first test for a weeder class was upon me, and I had no idea what I was doing. After the test, I felt unsure about how I did and left the room with little confidence. The next week, I heard some classmates talking about their scores and I remember feeling very apprehensive and nervous. Before looking at my score, I prayed to God telling him that if I did not do well on this test, I would take it as a sign to part my way with economics (The prayer may sound vain, but my intentions were pure!) After looking at the score, I let out a yelp of shock and a smile filled my face. I had received the score that the professor had said was the highest score! What affirmation! Euphoric and very thankful, I dedicated myself to a field that I have grown to love and create as my own.
I am not studying economics out of practicality or to enter business, however vague that is (But I am developing a better systems approach to many ideas). I am not studying economics because I consider it more challenging and harder than other social sciences (I respect those papers that countless North Campus students have to write). I am not studying economics because I have to.
I am studying economics because I love how I am developing as a systems thinker and can utilize economic tools in my everyday life (scare resources, synergetic relationships, etc etc). But most importantly, I am studying economics because I made my own choice.
The beautiful Lagrange multiplier :)
