COLUMN: Breaking up is hard to do, but necessary
I changed my major this past month. Yes, I know it’s cliche, but like anyone featured on the “Real World/Road Rules Challenge,” I must face reality.
There are innumerable reasons why someone would alter their course of study. Some feel a change will enhance chances of a successful career. Others believe they will be happier or experience more fulfillment in a new major. All the others just know, through vast support and wisdom from the depths of the universe, that they are destined to be a secret shopper.
My reason for switching, other than free Reptar Bars, was because I simply fell out of love with my current major. Sure it seemed uplifting and pleasing from the start, what with the warm welcome from advisers handing out four-year curriculum papers and all.
The first year or so of educational courtship was rather blissful, if not simply astounding. I was learning new things, opening myself to new environments and seeing things from a new perspective. I had an outlook on life that told me my new major was leading me to places I never knew I could go.
Day after day I wanted to keep exploring my major. I just wanted to be with my major. I couldn’t have been happier, because I found the one. I just knew it. I’d take my major home to the parents and they were so pleased I chose a field I could settle down with. Everyone was coming up with diploma-shaped roses.
Then year two came around and, much to my adjunct-motivated chagrin, things just weren’t the same. Suddenly this major wasn’t as mysterious or alluring. I wasn’t as excited to share my relationship with others. We weren’t as carefree as we were in the entry-level courses, when we could run free and just be happy together.
I’d come home from my 4000-level class frustrated and angry, and my major didn’t know what to do to console me. I’d see her out having fun with other new majors and get jealous. It was a whirling dervish of confusion — one that couldn’t even save Cory and Topanga.
Finally, contemplating life one day in a recitation, I knew our time together must come to an end.
I sat my major down in my apartment bedroom. She seemed upbeat and happy, always moving forward, but it wasn’t hard to see she knew what was coming.
I told her I was grateful for the time we had together — for the textbooks collected, conversations with passersby about the Gross Domestic Product, relating anything and everything to episodes of “Beavis and Butthead,” including a comparison of brand equity to Daria Morgandorffer that had us laughing to tears — and how all these memories will never go away.
I then took a breath and told her it was time for me to move on, that it wasn’t her, it was me… and, okay, a little bit of her as well.
She was angry, she was hurt and she was confused. She said she wanted to explain all these emotions vividly but could only ask “Why?”
This was when I said what had to be said — which was the hardest thing to say — “There’s someone else.”
She looked at me with crushed, tear-ridden eyes and asked, “Who?”
I swallowed hard, “Speech Communications.”
She was flabbergasted. She said she thought we had plans. We were going to get an MBA, move somewhere nice and give birth to a healthy, vibrant, beautiful career.
“Sure we had difficult times,” murmured the rather downtrodden major, “but we could work through it. We could change professors, take fewer credits, anything.”
She truly believed it could work even if I would have none of it.
I told her I was sorry. I told her I hope this didn’t put anything between us, and I hope she could still be my minor; but I’m a different man now and it was time we moved forward.
She didn’t say anything after that. She just stood up and left, and I’ve been with my new major ever since. Sure it’s a new pathway, and who knows what will happen? But I’m happy for the time being, even if I’ll forever look back and wonder, “What if?”
After all, breaking up is hard to do.
– Steve Schwartzman was a junior majoring in marketing and minoring in speech communication. His column runs every Wednesday. He loves sports, comedy and creative writing. He encourages any comments at his email steve.schwartzman@aggiemail.usu.edu, or find him on Facebook.