Stephen Puth makes the jump from history major to pop singer

You probably know at least one person who changed majors in university.

A study from the Institute of Education Sciences shows that 30% of students choose a major and then change it at least once within three years.

But the change Stephen Puth made was one few students have an opportunity to make. He went from studying history to becoming a budding pop star.

“I was a History Major,” Puth told CityNews. “I wasn’t a very good student though, I will admit that much. I was actually doing a finance internship and took some time off of school to work a full-time job in finance. The people I worked with were awesome but I realized after doing it for awhile I just wasn’t good at it, I couldn’t imagine doing this for the rest of my life.”

After he left school and his finance job, Puth got an internship in Los Angeles at a record company. He downloaded a music editing program and started to write music that artists were wanting to record. Shortly after, his dream came true.

“I was signed to a publishing deal and when I went to a meeting I thought was about publishing, they offered me a record deal instead.”

He went on to record a song he wrote called “Sexual Vibe.”

In just over a month it has almost 2 million streams on Spotify and is creeping on the 2 million views mark on YouTube.

But, Puth said he wasn’t always sure this was the right path for him.

“I actually told them ‘no’ a couple times before agreeing to the deal. I had social anxiety and I didn’t think I could do the whole stage presence thing,” said Puth. “I like hiding behind the shadows and writing for other people. But, it was getting to the point where I just had so many songs and I didn’t know what to do with them because there was no way someone would record some of them because they weren’t for them, it was my life.”

Puth, who is the younger brother of pop-singer Charlie Puth, is hoping to release a full album by the end of the year.