Hello there. My name is Lianne and I am a First-Year at Scripps. I am acting like a possible Economics major, but overall, I am proudly majoring in Undecided. I have hunches about what I want to do during my time here at Scripps and after graduation, but I don’t want to declare my major and a specific career yet because I don’t want to confine myself to a box that I am afraid to step out of.

If I had to reveal my hunches, I would say that I want to take up a minor that lets me somehow continue to learn Spanish. This would either be a Spanish minor or, if I like Linguistics, a Philology minor. I really enjoyed by high school economics class, but I thought that careers out of this major were confined to banks, stock market, and consulting. However, after talking to upperclass econ majors, I’ve learned that the major actually prepares you for a wide variety of jobs and not all of them require dressing up for an office. As of now, I can see myself using my economics degree to help non-profits manage their money.

I know that it is impossible to decide a life plan right now. There are so many new classes to take and careers to discover that will introduce me to parts of the job world I didn’t even know existed. I am a planner who usually has trouble going with the flow, but for some reason, I am not panicking about my unknown future. In fact, I like that I can say I am a First-Year with no clear ideas because I feel like I have more flexibility with plans this way. I am also uncharacteristically calm about my lack of plans because I know that everything will work out in the future.

This is not to say that I have been sleeping the days away, waiting for my future plans to come to me. This semester, I’ve started researching internships with nonprofits, asking econ majors about their experience and for advice, reaching out to potential major advisors, and applying for on-campus organizations for next year. I am taking my first Scripps econ class and a calculus class that is required for upper division econ classes so it feels great to know that I am starting to chip away at the econ major requirements.

If I follow my hunches, I will learn what I would like to continue to pursue, but also what I am not as interested in. The best thing I can do right now is explore as much as possible and savor the life of an Undecided First-Year.