When I applied to IUP, I thought I wanted to be a teacher. I was so sure of it. I declared my major as Middle Level Education for math and science, but that didn’t last long at all. Right before orientation, I decided against teaching and switched to undeclared since I wasn’t completely sure what I wanted to do. As a freshman, being undeclared is fairly common, but it can be frustrating at times. It seems like everyone you meet knows exactly what they want to do with their lives and has their next four years of college already planned out, even though this is usually not the case. However, I have to keep reminding myself that the average student changes their major about 1-3 times during college and many people end up working in jobs that aren’t related to their field of study.
Here are five truths to being an undeclared major:
1. People will ask a lot of questions
“So you have no idea what you want to do?” “Well, what are you interested in?” “What’s your passion?” “You do know you’ll have to pick a major eventually, right?” “What about *insert major*? You loved that class.”
2. Countless meetings
It seems like I’m going to a meeting every week to talk to someone in a certain department to try and pick a major. And most of the time, I leave the meetings feeling even more confused than when I went in.
Advice – Go to meetings with a list of questions and don’t let them pressure you into a major.
3. The undergraduate catalog becomes your best friend
I’ve spent many hours flipping through the undergraduate catalog, hoping something jumps out at me. It’s filled with tons of post-it notes, marking majors that I’m possibly interested in.
4. Not being able to join major related organizations
I vote that someone starts a club for undeclared majors.
5. Being told to just pick something
Sometimes it’s not about have difficulty just picking a major, it’s about there being too many majors that I could see myself doing. I’m a very open-minded and indesicive person so I’m more than likely going to change my mind in a couple days, so I might as well stay as undeclared until I find a major I’ll actually like for longer than a week.