I feel like I made a huge mistake with college

TLDR: I feel like I’m wasting my time and money at music school and wonder if I should have pursued a degree in English instead

I am currently a first semester freshman at Berklee College of Music. For my whole life, music has been my passion, and as soon as I heard about Berklee, it became my dream school. Last year, I attended the 5 week summer program, auditioned while I was there, and got accepted in October. I didn’t apply to any other school, and now I wish I had. Since then, I’d been excited to come, but also truthfully had my doubts. I love singing and writing songs, but I do not like studying music theory at all, which is a huge part of music school.

Aside from music, my passion is English. I’ve always loved to read (and write songs), and another dream of mine is to become a copy editor. At Berklee, I’m unable to study both music and English. I would have chosen another school where I could study both, but many places do not offer programs in contemporary music (and I did not want to go to Belmont).

Now that I’ve had classes for four weeks, I am almost certain that I made a huge mistake by coming here. Berklee is very expensive, and while I’m fortunate enough that my parents can afford it, I cannot in good conscience continue pursuing a performance or songwriting degree here. It absolutely will not give me many good job opportunities if I complete my degree. I just feel like it’s a huge waste of money. I have no interest in the slightly more lucrative majors, such as music therapy, education, or business. Everyone knows the most valuable part of being at Berklee is making connections and working with people, but I literally cannot make a friend to save my life. I have no idea how to do it. Everyone around me has friends except for me. And trust me, I’ve tried; I’ve reached out to people online, I’ve introduced myself to people in real life, and still I cannot make a friend.

On top of that, I don’t particularly enjoy my 7 classes very much, and they haven’t even gotten difficult yet. Other than private instruction and fundamentals of ear training, my classes that are focused on music do not interest me. I can already sense that Berklee is going to suck out all of the joy and creativity and self expression that I get from music. Going to school here has turned music into a chore, my main stressor, and the cause of debilitating insecurity. I don’t want my greatest passion to be ruined.

I will always be a musician, no matter what school I go to, or if I even go to school at all. I will always continue to write and release and post music as I have been doing. Every single day, I wake up wondering what the hell I’m doing here. I see English majors on social media and get so jealous. I will always wonder what my life would’ve looked like if I had gone into copyediting/publishing. If I dropped out of music school, I wouldn’t wonder what it would be like to pursue a career as an artist because dropping out of Berklee wouldn’t stop me from doing that.

Honestly, the biggest thing holding me back from trying to go to a different school is shame. Everyone in my hometown and the people I went to high school with know me as The Singer ™ and have been so proud of me for going to Berklee. I know I shouldn’t care about what other people think, but I can’t help but worry that everyone will see me as a failure and not fit to be a musician. This is an illogical thought process, I know, especially because my online presence will continue to exist solely to promote myself as an artist, but I can’t stop myself from thinking about this. I just don’t want everyone to be disappointed in me. I feel so guilty for all of the effort my parents have put into moving me here (from NC to Boston) and for the money they’ve paid for my first semester. I feel so ungrateful and a waste of resources. More than anything I wish I could slap some sense into myself from a year ago.

I’m really lost and don’t know what to do. I talked to my mom about this yesterday, and she said we’ll figure something out by the end of the semester, but I’m honestly dreading being here for that long. Im so depressed here, I just spend all of my free time crying and reading.

Thank you so much for reading this insanely long ramble if you made it this far.