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Feeling Scared to Change Your Major?: Here’s My Experience 

The opinions expressed in this article are the writer’s own and do not reflect the views of Her Campus.
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Manhattan chapter.

April of 2023 was my accepted students’ day at Manhattan, and I toured the Kakos School of Arts & Sciences. When I applied, I did so as an English major, and even though I did love English and everything about the school, I felt pulled somewhere else. I researched and talked it over with almost everyone in my life, just trying to find somewhere that felt like my future. I stressed a lot more than I should have early on, if you can’t tell. 

Over the summer, I switched to a Marketing major in the Business School and switched my entire class schedule. During my first semester as a business student, I took my Essentials in Marketing class, and I felt so close to where I wanted to be. I missed writing, though, which had originally been my dream. Thankfully, I was able to find outlets in other clubs, like Her Campus. I knew this was what I wanted for my future, but I still felt like I was just missing something.

When I rushed my sorority, almost all the girls I met were Communications majors. I had heard about the major before, but I never gave it a lot of thought and didn’t really see the depth in it. So many of the girls urged me to look into it and give it a shot, so I took an Introduction to Communications course, and I LOVED IT. The professor I had also helped sell the major as he was the good kind of crazy – the kind that makes you slightly worried for him, but you also never want anyone else to teach you a course besides him again. 

Due to this positive experience, I decided to declare a double major in Marketing and Communications. I’ve had two internships so far, both in marketing, but in the second one, I got to see the PR side of things. I thoroughly enjoyed working in and experiencing PR, so that’s the concentration I’ve declared in communications.

I feel like I got my degree and concentration figured out faster than most, but that doesn’t mean it was easy. I was almost an Accounting major, a Journalism major, and so many more. It’s okay to enter college, or to be halfway through, or even finished and feel like you don’t have it all figured out yet. You still have so much life left to live and so much to learn. You can always go back to school, add an extra minor, or take an extra certification, and you can always end up in a job that has absolutely nothing to do with your major. It’s okay to feel things out and see what you are really gonna be happy with.

Hi! My names Ally, I’m from a small town in Pennsylvania and I'm currently in my sophomore year at Manhattan University. I am a Marketing and Communications double major with a concentration in PR. I absolutely love traveling, no matter how far or how close the location is as long as its something new. I've been to 48 states, and Maine was my absolute favorite. But, I have 7 siblings so family vacations are a bit stressful, so I'd prefer to go when I'm older. I've written for an environmental magazine called EcoGenZine during high school and have always loved writing since I was a child. I usually find inspiration from TikTok or Pinterest where my collections are growing to be a bit too large. I love taking criticism on my work, oddly, and learning from others' work.