I went into my first year of university majoring in Global Development Studies in a Bachelor of Arts degree. I wanted to travel, was interested in nonprofit organizations, and loved volunteering in my community. You couldn’t have convinced me to change my degree.
Until I started working on my elective classes.
Call it curiosity or call it insanity, but I really zigged and zagged around in my electives. I took everything from argumentative reasoning (in French, no less) to wave optics to organic chemistry. Somewhere in that time, it hit me: I’d fallen in love with science.
By the end of my second year, I found myself transferring into a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology.
And so I spent a year or so in the faculty of science and took my sweet time learning genetics and biochemistry. But when it came time to do the human anatomy prerequisites, I got a little too invested in studying the human brain.
So, what did I do? Jumped ship on biology and changed my major to Behavioral Neuroscience, of course.
But that didn’t stick around for long.
As it turns out, I’m now finishing up my degree in Psychology.
By this point, you might be starting to think I’m a wingnut with some very deep-rooted commitment issues and that may be true. If it is, it’s not because of the unusual path I’ve taken in my education.
Allow me to explain myself using something I learned in Economics (yes, I really did take micro and macroeconomics too).
It’s called the sunk cost fallacy. And for a student trying to figure out what to do with their career and education, it usually looks something like this:
“The further I get into my law degree, the more I realize that I just don’t like it. The more I learn about the job, the less interested in it I am. But I’ve already come so far in my education and put in so much hard work and money. It’s too late to start over now.”
Is it though?
If you choose to purse post-secondary education, it’s usually because you have a career idea or interest in mind.
That’s no small potatoes.
With even entry level positions now requiring an undergraduate degree in a relevant field, if you decide to make a career switch things can get tricky. What happens if you change your mind after you graduate? Do you give into the sunk cost fallacy and go into a career that you’re no longer interested in? Do you go back to school and start from square one?
Neither of those options screams ideal to me.
So here’s the thing: if you’re in your undergrad and are starting to feel the weight of the sunk cost fallacy, just change your major.
I’ll be the first to admit that changing your major can require some back tracking to get the required classes out of the way, and not everyone has the financial ability to explore different disciplines and take their time in college.
That said, if you’re worried about changing your major because of time or money constraints, you may be surprised at how many of the classes you took for your old major count for credit towards your new major.
My advice? If you’re feeling unsure of your choices and are leaning towards a different path, have a look at your school’s requirements for the major you are interested in. Once you have some information, take advantage of the resources right under your fingertips. Meet with an advisor in the programs and have them help guide you in the right direction.
As for what the ‘right direction’ is, that’s for you to decide. Just take your time doing so.
The academic world is your oyster.