With the beginning of a new academic year (yikes, but yay!), it may be time for some of you to *drumroll* declare a major. For a lucky few, it may be a no-brainer; you may be one of those people who have known that you wanted to be a doctor since first grade – I salute you! For the rest of us, however, choosing a major can seem like a pretty scary decision.
While I’m now two years into my own major (political science, in case you were curious), I’m in no way an expert on the whole choosing-a-major-process – quite the opposite actually. Thus, instead of giving you advice based on what I did to make up my mind, I figured I would give you some advice based on what, in hindsight, I wish I’d known:
- Dare to keep an open mind.
If you, like me, have little to no idea what you want to spend the rest of your life doing, choosing a major may seem nearly impossible. Don’t sweat it! I know it may be a total cliché, but the whole purpose of college (well, aside from getting all worldly and educated of course) is to figure out who you are and what you want to do from here on out!
If you’re not sure of what you want to major in, don’t pick a major just for the sake of it (and even if you have an idea, don’t commit just yet!). Instead, dedicate your first year, and maybe even your second, to exploring your options! The UM cognates, while they may be a pain, is a great tool in doing this, so focus on those your freshman year: best case scenario, you find your calling, and worst case scenario, you get your required classes over with! Really, it’s a win-win.
2. Don’t look for a passion, look for a genuine interest
In choosing a major, it’s easy to feel like you have to find something you are truly passionate about. Surely then, you are disappointed to find that even after taking a ton of different classes, your passion is yet to dawn on you. Let me be frank here: I believe that few people are lucky enough to find their passion right of the bat, especially when looking for it through an academic lens. Because really, college classes don’t usually reflect the real-life profession, and even if they do, it may be hard for us to imagine what it would actually be like – or more importantly, what we would be like, working in that profession.
So instead of looking for something that you are truly passionate about, look for something that you find you have a genuine interest in. If you are genuinely interested in something, that something may very well develop into a passion as you dig into it; few people are passionate about things they don’t have a deeper knowledge of. And, even if what you have an interest in doesn’t turn into your passion, it is very likely that it will eventually guide you in the right direction (see this article).
3. Your major doesn’t (necessarily) define you
If you, even after declaring your major, aren’t always sure that you’ve made the right choice, that’s okay. Seriously, you’re fine! Just because you were a journalism, marketing, or public relations major in college, that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to work within that field after college. In fact, according to an article by CBS News, college majors and careers often don’t match: only 27.3 percent of college graduates work with something directly related to their major. So, while it may feel like declaring a major limits your career options, that isn’t always true!
Source:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-study-shows-careers-and-college-majors-o…