When I was in second grade a new family moved in behind our house with a daughter just my age. We played about every day that summer. She had an older sister who would tell us stories and help us build forts. The sister always wanted to be a journalist.
I idolized that older sister. No one had really spent time telling me stories the way she did and I lapped up every single idea. Because of that, I decided I wanted to be a journalist.
In junior high, I edited the school newspaper. In high school, taking journalism classes also required selling advertising which wasn’t something I thought I could do, so I never pursued that. Instead, I went to college and majored in English. While it opened doors asking only for a bachelor’s degree, it wasn’t that helpful in anything else.
I’ve learned more about writing books from reading and from classes and seminars I’ve taken since graduation.
If I had it to do again, I’d probably major either in business (something that would have definitely helped me over the years) or something completely unrelated that could have supported me while I worked on writing like computer science–and I did take a few programming classes and I was good at it.
I don’t actually regret my major because I doubt I would have chosen the school I went to if I’d decided on a different major and I think that my college experiences were important to have for my future. We all get to where we’re supposed to go in the end.