Hello! My name is Jaelyn. I am 19 years old and I’m from Elkhart, IN. I am currently attending Ball State University in Muncie, IN where I study Music Education as my major. As well as being a full-time student, I also work for Ball State in their housing department. When it came to choose my major for college, I struggled a lot with making a definite decision. There were so many things that I was good at and so many things that I wanted to try. I got a lot of suggestions from friends and family members as far as what I should choose. I had considered all the suggestions and ended up with a long list that needed to be shortened. It took me all four years of high school to finally come to a decision. It was a very hard decision because there were several factors that I had to consider. Some of those factors included wondering if my major was going to be practical and attainable for me. Another was wondering if I am going to want to study for this career for four years and if I had a passion for it. I also had to determine if I could see myself doing the profession and making an honest living with it in the years to come after graduation. I had slowly been narrowing down the list of majors and I had been searching for schools that offered the majors on my short list. I eventually had gotten my list down to two majors that I was seriously considering. Those two were Math Education and Music Education. As I came close to making a decision, I searched schools that offered these majors. I didn’t want to attend college too close to home, but I didn’t want to be too far either. In my last year of high school, I was exposed to some wonderful music teachers that I still love to this day. I had already loved music; it was one of my passions. They shared this same passion of mine and I could tell that they loved what they were doing. Not only did they bring students together with music, they created a brave space where there was no judgement, no drama, and nothing to worry about except the music in our hands. They inspired me with how optimistic they were and how much they loved teaching us students. I then realized that I would love to be where they are eventually. That was the when I decided my major. As of right now, I couldn’t be happier with my decision. I can clearly see myself becoming like my high school teachers and my passion for music only grew stronger. I’ve already gone through so many experiences and opportunities that have shown me that this was exactly what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Music has helped me in so many ways throughout my life and I hope I can change the lives of others.
