AJ's story
I was not sure what I wanted to study when I came to IU as a freshman. After taking all general education courses in my first semester, I decided that I was going to pursue admission to the Kelley School of Business. During our first meeting, I told my UD academic advisor that I wanted to take all of the Kelley admissions courses in one semester to catch up, since I had focused mainly on general education classes my first semester. My advisor warned me how rigorous and selective the admission process was, but I thought that it couldn’t be that hard. After getting a 3.5 GPA in my first semester, I felt very confident to face the tough semester ahead of me. Unfortunately, after just one month, I realized how hard the coursework really was. I was having a really difficult time balancing my commitment with Air Force ROTC and being a pre-Kelley student. I returned to my advisor and he helped me realize that my priority was in AFROTC, not Kelley. After several more meetings, my advisor pointed me in the direction of the Public Management and Leadership major from the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs. It turns out that this major is a perfect fit for my interests and my goal of going into the Air Force as an officer. Overall, I’m happy to have had the help from my UD advisor and to have started in University Division, where I had the opportunity to explore and find a major that I’m really excited about.