Since my junior year of high school, I figured I'd be a graphic designer. I'd go to school, get a degree, get a job, and spend the rest of my days designing away. It would be a good life, if uneventful and ultimately meaningless. I've spent the past four semesters of college pursuing that life, and I really haven't done too bad. Got a B or better in all of my design classes, passed the sophomore review, and now I'm heading into my junior year. Roughly fifteen minutes ago, as I was trying to get some sleep, I realized that this isn't me. This isn't what I want to do with my life, not exactly.

I want to make an impact on the world. I believe that change is both necessary and good, and I would love to be an agent of change. I have no idealistic delusions about being a great figure, recorded forever in the annals of history -- I want to change our world for the better, no matter how insignificant that change may be in the overall scheme of things, and that will be enough. I don't think graphic design alone can do that. Working at some design firm, designing annual reports and business cards for Generic Jackoffs Inc. for the rest of my life doesn't seem a particularly effective way to influence public policy. I really do enjoy and value graphic design, in spite of what I've said, but I'm starting to realize that it's nothing more than a means to an end, a medium for a message.

So, with more than half of my college career over I've decided that I'm minoring in political science. Right now you're rolling your eyes, because every idealistic jackass in the history of idealistic jackasses has minored in political science. I'm not interested in bullshitting my way through some halfassed courses; my interest in political science is fairly focused. I'm interested mainly in public opinion and the mechanisms that shift it, and my PolSci electives will be geared, in at least a tangential way, towards that.

My education and interest in political science will guide what I say, and my education in graphic design will help me say it in the most effective manner possible. Until about half an hour ago, my ultimate goal after graduation was to go to some big city, get a job at a decent design firm, and call it a day. Now after graduation I'm going to design for a progressive nonprofit organization, preferably with a focus on influencing public policy. I don't know who, I don't know where, and I don't know how, but I do know why, and that makes all the difference. I still have two years to get the details worked out.

So yeah. This sort of radical change of focus is kind of new to me. Anyone else feel like you had to change or augment your major? If so, why?