Some Tips to Help You Select a Major

Majors are the fields of study offered at various colleges and universities, each with their own requirements, courses and job prospects. The definition is very simple, so why is selecting one to study during your college years? The answer to that lies in how well prepared you are to make that kind of life decision ahead of time. Some fall for the hype that they see on television and in entertainment about certain career fields being very glamorous and wonderful, when indeed, they are not. Others base this decision on what they have always wanted, only to change it later. On average, according to the Book of Majors (2004 edition) many people change majors in college between three and seven times. This leads some experts to believe that American college students are becoming very indecisive because they lack the resources necessary to make a final decision. I have no intention on making you finalize, once and for all, about your career path. I aim only to help point you in the right direction.

The college major is a large set of courses dealing in the same subject matter at more and more advanced levels as the years progress. There are a wide variety of majors available, from anthropology to zoology. All of these can be selected based on what your interests are. Some colleges even offer interdisciplinary majors which combine more than one set of courses to produce a preliminary major based rudimentarily on the regular one offered by other colleges. Most are open to anyone who wishes to purposely apply themselves to it. Entry into some is based purely on the fact that you showed up. Others, especially the science majors, will rely somewhat on what you have taken in high school. Many art and performing arts majors require you to submit a portfolio of previous work for critique and judgment. One must consider this when selecting a field.

Some very helpful resources exist to help you decide which major is correct for you. For one, there is your brain. Ask yourself these three questions; What do I like to do, or what classes did I enjoy most in high school? What majors apply to that interest? What career opportunities exist in this field? As well, there are many web sights that individually describe many majors and some sites where online personal profiles can be filled in and data sent back to you almost instantly about what career options would best match your interests, otherwise known as interest inventories. Some libraries will have books on this very subject, which are excellent resources due to their vast collections of major data. A general search online may also be of excellent use. Be sure to utilize every possible resource in your search!

Through all of this, you may still pick a different major in the end. Most college undergraduates graduate with different degrees than what they declared back in their freshman years. The best thing to do is to have an idea of an ideal major by your junior year in college because the first two years of collegiate learning tend to be general education courses. This is called undecided, and is declared in your freshmen year. This is a great opportunity to sample college courses to see what you like the best. Just thoroughly analyze the ideas of each course to find your medium of interest. If you already have a major picked out by now, this is not a problem, so just keep up the good work!

In conclusion, one more major point about majors. Television and movies would have you believe that certain jobs are always exhilarating, leading to triumphant climaxes where it is good versus evil and the guy with the great job and cool sunglasses beats up the villain and gets the girl. Such was and is the case with the various crime shows like CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. Many people went to college during the run of that show wanting to be forensic scientists and police officers. What they had not bargained for were all the extra science, math and chemistry courses required for such a degree. They ended up changing rapidly in school because the forensic investigators actually have tough majors to finish, lead rather bleak lives seeking answers to mostly unanswerable questions, and did not always get the bad guy while wearing the cool sunglasses. As this goes to show, never select a major because it was on television. Research a career if you set your sights on it, so that you know what you really want to do rather than finding disappointment at Hollywood's false reenactments.