Did I make the right decision? This is a question I have often asked myself when it comes to my life’s choices. I haven’t done things which I would consider exponentially more regrettable than the next person. However, when it came to my choice of whether or not to return to school after dropping out in 2018, I felt some regret. Every year or so that passed where I still hadn’t finished my degree felt like a waste of time. While I did experience some amazing things, I lived in Australia for just under a year, worked multiple different jobs, traveled across the United States, and married my best friend. Despite all these wonderful things, I still felt like not having a degree was holding me back. Many of the careers I wanted to pursue or places I wanted to travel to for a long-term stay were unrealistic without some form of degree or specialized training.  

If I wanted to travel somewhere to teach English, which is a great way to get into many countries, I needed at least a bachelor’s degree and a teaching certificate to be considered for these kinds of roles.  

After years of debating whether going back to school was realistic or affordable, I made the leap. I went back to school in the fall of 2024 at the age of  28, things were completely different from when I had first started attending 10 years earlier.  

Now that I was back in classes, I felt so much more motivated to learn new things. Especially after changing my major. For years I thought Spanish was right for me, I loved the language and even studied in Ecuador for a semester. But I wasn’t motivated enough in my learning to make a career out of it one day. Almost as soon as I switched my degree to communications, my enjoyment for my classes changed drastically. I loved what I was learning; I loved all my professors. I was also a much more confident student now that I felt more like a peer of my professors. I didn’t have that same fear of inferiority; I had back when I started college at 18. Now over a decade after beginning my scholastic journey, I will finish with a bachelor’s degree I can be proud of. Even after all those years of feeling regret for not returning to school earlier, I now feel like coming back when I did was the best choice I could have made. 

Not only did I change my major and enjoy it more, I also cared more about learning in general. When I was 18 and had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, I didn’t give a flip about what my math class was teaching me, or why a research paper needed to have credible sources. Now that I’ve lived more of my life and I’ve worked in several different fields, I not only crave knowledge, but I seek it out. I ask questions in my classes, I read material more thoroughly and I continue to search for more related material to expand my understanding of what I’m learning. Now I’d say my only regret is not craving this knowledge sooner.