Choosing what to study can be one of the most intimidating hurdles when coming into post-secondary. In high school, there was a lot of pressure to know immediately what you wanted to do for university or college. The educational system pressures you into it, with high school teachers and early acceptance programs egging potential first-year students to make one of the most significant decisions of their lives at the ripe age of seventeen. When I was in high school, I thought that studying computer science was what I would be doing for the next four years of my academic career. Of course, it was never that easy.
I ended up switching majors after my first year. This decision was accompanied by a whirlwind of emotions and stress, but changing your major doesn’t have to be this big, looming issue that scares you. A lot of first-years tend to switch majors after or even during their first year. After going through such a big transition, I’m eager to share what I learned through my experiences of figuring out what to study, covering not only majors but also minors and electives.
Majors
If you’re thinking about switching majors, reach out to your professors, especially in the classes where you’re struggling or feeling lost in. When I first started to feel unhappy in my classes, I found that I wasn’t doing well in them when it came to my grades. Professors and teaching assistants are there to help you succeed and offer resources in addition to other forms of assistance to you. I wish I had sought their help in my first year.
My next piece of advice is to consult your academic advisors. Academic advisors are a resource I took advantage of because they helped me massively when I felt lost in my academic journey. Even when I was switching faculties, my advisor answered all of my questions about my electives and explained how I could transfer my credits, helping me better understand where I could go from there.
There is also a resource called an academic reset, meaning that you can wipe 9-30 units from the first 30 units you completed in your first year. It doesn’t matter if you passed or failed them—you can have them essentially gone from your grade point average (GPA). This is super helpful in switching your major if you need a certain GPA to switch. The application process is fairly easy too, and you can find the requirements and how to apply here.
One of the important parts of switching majors is knowing when you’re ready to switch. I stuck with my first program for my first year, just to be completely sure that computer science wasn’t the right fit for me. I figured maybe I just wasn’t adjusted enough, that maybe I needed time to adapt to this new format which was different from high school. During the second semester of my first year, I found that my grades didn’t improve, and I felt less happy doing the work in my classes because I ultimately couldn’t see myself doing coding for the rest of my life.
Of course, all of this is based on my experience. I was indecisive and less emotionally aware of what I wanted when I decided to stay in computer science in my first year. Your experience may differ entirely from mine, and maybe you’re more certain that your current major is not for you. That is completely okay! Just know that ultimately, there’s no real downside to switching majors. You can always take things at your own pace, enrol in summer school, take less classes, and transfer your credits from your first degree to your new one. You can do this by transferring them to electives or a minor if you switch; a lot of my computer science electives were transferred to my psychology degree with no issues, although you should still consult your academic advisor to be absolutely sure they can be transferred.
There are many options when deciding to switch majors, and it ultimately opens up the gates for many more opportunities to discover what you adore in your studies.
minors
Minors are fantastic for you to delve further into what interests you and study it at a university level. My major allows me to take multiple electives, and what better way to knock those out than with classes you enjoy? On top of that, you get it added to your degree at the end!
Minors, in comparison to majors, have a pretty low commitment. Minors can help you specialize in a specific field; for instance, a psychology major with a criminology minor (or vice versa) could be a good take-off point for law school, or to become a behavioural analyst. It gives you a specific set of skills to pair with your major. Or, you could minor in something you’re passionate about—that’s also completely valid.
The bottom line is that minors can be incredibly useful to enhance your major or make you more qualified in another special interest that you have.
electives
Building on what I said about minors, electives are the gateway to branching out beyond your major and discovering what you like to learn about. Always check your course sequence to see if it allows you to take electives first, but if you can, I suggest taking courses that sound interesting to you.
Don’t limit yourself to first-year electives either; you can take second-year electives in your first year, or any electives as long as you have the prerequisites! First-year electives are usually a starting point for deeper content within that major—meaning if you take PSY1101 and PSY1102, you’ll have more specific psychology classes available to you when you pick electives for future semesters. Of course, you can always take different electives not related to your program at all.
My suggestion is that you find electives that are a good balance between your interests and overall course load. Electives are there to not only allow you to delve deeper into what you like, but also to boost your GPA. My experience is that if you like what you’re studying, it’ll reflect in your grades as long as you put the effort in.
so what’s the big picture?
When deciding what I wanted to write for this series, I decided to write about something that I feel that everyone experiences at least once in their first year. There’s always so much uncertainty about whether you’ve chosen the correct major, minor, or electives. In all honesty, there isn’t a single correct answer; what’s important is that you look out for yourself, and make sure that whatever you are studying, you can see yourself continuing to do for a good portion of your life.