Freshmen
Changing or Choosing Your Major
City BridgeChoosing and changing your major is apart of the college experience. Most people go into college knowing what they want to do with their lives. They might want to become a doctor to save lives, become a business executive to retire rich and early, or maybe they want to be an avante-garde artiste in order to be the next Marcel Duchamp. In any case, your major determines what paths of classes are available to you, and in turn what job opportunities you have. There’s flexibility within a major, but it’s pretty hard to get hired for a civil engineering job when you studied sociology, so your major does determine your career to a certain extent.
Entering college knowing what major you want to be in helps mostly once you start taking upper division classes, so honestly you could go the first year and a half of college without declaring your major. Then again, you could mix in your high-end classes with your pushover survey classes to boost your GPA, so do whatever works for you.
I had a classmate who wanted to go UCLA (or maybe Berkeley) as a jazz flutist, but since he knew they let in maybe 3 of those per year, he applied and was accepted as an economics major. Your major is one of the factors colleges look at when they’re evaluating your application, and it helps to know what majors they accept most. If you have to enter as a second-choice major or even undeclared to then switch to the major you really want, so be it.
For my entire freshman year, I was a computer science major, and I had to deal with everything that comes with that title. Sure, most people thought I was smart, good with computers, and helpful. Then again, I had a girl I liked tell me that she was surprised when she first met me to see me so clean. Apparently, she had heard a rumor that CS majors shower once a week. Not the best image. No offense to any CS majors; that one guy (you know who I’m talking about) is the one who gives the rest of us a bad name.
I switched to English near the end of my second year, because I realized I liked my English classes much more, and I couldn’t fathom the horror of sitting in front of a computer typing code for the rest of my life. My dad, who is an engineer, wasn’t too happy about that (no jobs in English besides teaching, I’ll learn no real skills, etc.). He still gives me some grief about it, but jokingly now and he supports me. Still, you have to deal with all of the consequences of choosing your major. And I’m sorry to say this, but if your major is interpretive dance or art history, you will have a hard time finding a job unless you are the absolute BEST in your field.
The most important thing about your major is that you have to like it. As long as you’re doing well in school, you can change your major pretty often. But if you’re slacking off a little, maybe partying a bit too much… changing it might be a problem.
So to all of you unsure what your major should be, you’ve got some time to pick. If you decide that your major isn’t for you, you can always choose again.
Just make sure you choose your major for the right reasons. If you want money, hey, go for it. But don’t come crying to me if your business communications course is so boring you want to bludgeon yourself to death with your own laptop.
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Tags: changing your major, choosing your major, college advice, college experience, college major, major Discussion
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If you aren’t happy with what you are doing, its a sign that you won’t like doing it in the future either.
I changed from CE to CS simply because I wasn’t enjoying the EE aspect of CE.
I’m glad I made that change.
Im a Information Systems major and i love it xP haha
yay for no physics classes
These are some great insights on how to go about choosing a major, or even changing majors midway through your college “career”. Here’s another little article on how to choose a major
I guess you’re about 20 years too late to study to fix pinball machines! (not that you’d want to!)
I agree with the first poster. If you don’t enjoy your major while you’re in college, then you definitely won’t enjoy it when you’re working in the field. Then again, there are some people who just hate school and prefer the work – and might change their minds if they enter into an internship and start getting some On The Job Training.
It seemed to me that most people I knew changed majors, or added a second one late. Now that we’re all done with college, here is what I noticed:
If you have a skills major (like Engineering), changing your major matters because your major is a huge part of your admission ticket into the working world. Even so, if you have good quant skills, you’ll be fine. If you can write AND crunch numbers, you’ll be the boss one day.
If you are a Lib Arts major (or anything that lacks quant skills), it probably won’t matter. If you’re going to grad school in your major, your GPA and ECs will be most important. If you’re going to law or business school, you can have any undergrad major. A 4.0 Spanish major will be in better shape than a 2.8 Business undergrad, even if applying to b-school.
If you want to pad your GPA, choose an easy major. These differ by campus, but psych is usually a good place to start looking. It becomes obvious fast which majors have the highest concentration of Einsteins. In curved grading, stay away from those unless that major pertains to your career.
I changed my major to a BA in Integrated Studies with a Web Technologies emphasis before the end of my third year. When I looked at everything the course had to offer I decided it was a good fit for me. I don’t want the coding end of it. Instead I want more formalized training on how to create graphics for multiple formats. Like posters, business cards that type of thing. I looked at like this, technology is a fast paced industry and more talented people are needed to keep the momentum going well into the future. I want to be one of those people.
It always helps to take something that you have an interest in. If possible, that comes first and then the money/career
Some parents force it to their kids and ended up regretting it in the future
I like you changed my direction.
I realised that I liked one of my optional subjects more than the one I was majoring in.
The key is definitely enjoying what you do, and if you don’t enjoy studying it then its unlikely you will enjoy day to day work in it!
Great Post
That was my whole problem in college. I couldn’t stick to a major! I’m going back to school and I’m sure what I want to do now. I’m just mustering up the money to actually do it. It’s CS this time with a Sociology minor.
My boyfriend has changed what he wants to be a few times, but most of all he’s actually changed the university he attends three times now! But I guess as long as everyone is happy in the end it’s all good
In spite of some students’ grumbling, it’s actually a beneficial thing that you are being exposed to various no major related subjects in college. Sometimes it’s the only way to “uncover” your true calling. My friend, an English major, fell in love with biology when she took it as an elective. Not only has she changed her major, since then she obtained her bachelor and master degree in molecular biology and is considering going for PHD.