Harrison

I'm Harry. I'm a fourth year and I'm from Brooklin, Ontario. I originally came to university going into animal bio, and I didn't really have that big of a strategy behind it. I just really liked animals and thought that it would fit, and basically all through high school everyone was like oh I could see you doing that for sure, like that's definitely for you. And then once I got here, I realized that it's a little harder than I had originally planned. People were like oh, which vet school are you going to apply to? And I was like what? No, that's not- I don't want to apply to vet school. And they were like well, this isn't the program for you, so I kind of got a wake up call with that. The transition from high school to university was way bigger than I had ever expected. So my first midterm that I got back was actually- I got it back and it was 30 percent, and I had never seen a mark that low in my life. So I called my mom and I was like listen I'm dropping out or I'm doing something because I can't do this anymore, so I stuck with it for another year and a half, and in that year and a half, I failed chem twice, I got really bad marks and I just- It got to a point where I decided you know what? I need to do this for myself, so I switched at that point. So once the change happened and I started finding an outlet for my stress, and finally got around to switching my major, I'd noticed that not only did my grades improve, but my interest in school came back in a sense. So I was actually interested to go back to class and I was willing to learn again as opposed to the courses in animal bio I was not interested in, and the content was so heavy that my brain just- I couldn't do it. I did not want to learn. Doing the switch actually felt like rebirthing my interest in school and basically just made me feel a lot better about what I was doing. Switching majors is actually a lot more common than some people think or high schoolers coming into university would expect, so just relating to them and seeing how common it is to switch your major definitely helped a lot with the stress level I was going through. Additionally, counseling services here a Guelph I definitely went to a couple times and said like listen, I don't know what I'm doing, and they definitely, not really pushed me to a path, but gently nudged me in a way where I realized okay, it's no so bad, I can definitely do this. Switching majors is completely okay and getting a 30 on your first midterm is definitely not the end of the world, and it's no cause for concern or for feeling the need to drop out. You're going to get through it and you're going to do great, so-